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644 Henry Seton Jtferriman 35 Cents 

at the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter. Issued Monthly. Subscription Price per Year, 12 Nos., $5.00. 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE 


31 Jfouel 


BY 

HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

April, 1889 


HARPER'S FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY. 


LATEST ISSUES. 


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531. The Heir of the Ages. By James Payn. Ill 

532. Buried Diamonds. A Novel. By Sarah Tyi 

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534. Pomegranate Seed. A Novel 

[ Continued on Third Page of Cover 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE 


h movci 



BY 


HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 

* \ \ 



NEW YORK 

HARPER Si BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 


1889 

oo 



THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Graybeard crept through a village street. 
His head was bowed, his weary feet 
Were bruised and torn. 

A staff in his right hand he bare, 

The wind played with his silver hair — 
His coat was worn. 

“Onward he passed through golden corn, 
Weary with toil from early morn 
He cast him down. 

A youth and maiden came along, 

Grave she ; but he, with noisy song 
Learned in the town. 

“ ‘ What seek you in this sunny field ?’ 
Graybeard, to whom he thus appealed, 
Slow raised his head — 

4 A Phantom Future I pursue !’ 
***** 

“ 4 Methinks we seek the same as you,’ 

The maiden said.” 



CONTENTS 


/ 


•I 


0ITAP * PAGE 

I. MYRA’S BAR 7 

II. syra’s ADMIRERS 14 

III. THE FUTURE 21 

IV. GOLDHEATH 27 

V. OLD SHIPMATES 35 

YI. PLAYMATES 44 

vii. crozier’s lie 52 

VIII. RESURRECTION PIE 58 

IX. THE ACADEMY OF CHEERFULNESS 66 

X. THE SCHOOL OF MELANCHOLY 72 

XI. QUICKSAND 79 

XU. HOLDS W ORTn MOVES 84 

Xin. THE DOCTOR’S MALADY 90 

XIV. BURNT FINGERS 97 

XV. A CREATURE OF IMPULSE 103 

XVI. INTRUDERS 110 

XVII. SYRA’S SECRET 118 

XVIII. FORTUNE SMILES 126 

XIX. A SHADOW FORECAST 133 

XX. DIPLOMACY 141 

XXI. THE PLOT 148 

XXII. FLOWERS 153 

xxm. DANGER , . 158 


VI 


CONTENTS, 


CHAP. 

XXIV. THE RECKONING UP . 

XXY. FOREWARNED 

XXYI. FOR THE SHIP’S SAKE 

XXVII. IMPULSE 

XXVHI. THE BUSHEL RAISED 

XXIX. THE FIRE 

XXX. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 

XXXI. “BE YE THEREFORE VERY COURAGEOUS ” 

XXXII. GOLDHEATH AGAIN 

XXXIH. SAM EXPLAINS 


PAGE 

166 

170 

178 

187 

196 

204 

211 

218 

227 

235 


at 









» 


V 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER I. 
myra’s bar. 

“ Yes, Mr. Crozier, I think it is very good. Tell me, will it 
make a difference in his life ?” 

The girl who spoke closed the book she had been glancing 
through, and laid it upon the marble counter among the sherry 
decanters, black china match-boxes, and ash-trays. She was only 
a bar-maid, and the brilliant gas shining down from a sunlight in 
the ceiling overhead betrayed the fact that her faultless face was 
not quite innocent of artificial aid. Faultless? — no, not quite 
faultless. The lower lip was pressed upward when in repose, 
forcing the upper slightly out of place. The expression imparted 
thus to the daintiest mouth imaginable was not disagreeable, but 
it was somewhat sad, if studied closely, for it seemed to imply 
that existence was an effort. 

The man to whom her innocent question was addressed did 
not answer at once. He took a long sip of whiskey-and-water, 
and by a turn of his tongue shifted his cigar from the left to the 
right-hand corner of his mouth. He was a heavy-shouldered man, 
with a large head and small blue eyes set close together. When 
he thought deeply his eyes appeared to contract and sink deeper 
beneath the splendid forehead. This expression came over his 
face now, although his gaze was fixed on nothing more interest- 
ing than the linoleum which covered the floor. 

“ I don’t know,” he said, thoughtfully ; and being seated on a 
high stool, he swung his right leg backward and forward. “ It ' 
is hard to say what the result will be. He is such a harum-scarum 


8 - 


T1IE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


sort of fellow that one never knows what he will do next. Seems 
to be sick of medicine, does he not?” 

The girl had risen from her seat behind the bar, displaying a 
perfect figure, shown to full advantage by a tight-fitting black 
dress. She moved along to the end of the curving counter and 
turned the gas that burned beneath a huge silver coffee -urn 
slightly higher. 

“ They will be coming in, in a few minutes,” she murmured to 
herself, glancing upward at the clock suspended on the wall op- 
posite. Then she answered Crozier’s question carelessly and in- 
differently, after the manner of a person who has been talking on 
uninteresting topics all day. 

“Yes; he seems tired of it. I do not think that he ever was 
very enthusiastic about it, though !” 

Her voice was somewhat deep, and she spoke very neatly, 
clipping her words occasionally in a manner which suggested 
that she had, at one time, learned elocution. 

“Sickening profession,” grumbled the man. He emitted a 
cloud of smoke from his lips without removing the cigar, and 
looking up presently, saw that it floated directly into the girl’s 
face and around her elaborately dressed fair hair. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said, hastily, and with his broad hand 
he waved the smoke aside gravely. 

“ Oh, never mind,” she laughed, “I do not mind smoke. I have 
been accustomed to it for some years now. There are very often 
ten of you smoking in this little room in the evening.” 

She spoke in a quick, heartless way, with a conventional smile 
upon her lips. 

“ Makes no difference,” he said, gravely. “ You may be ac- 
customed to it, but I have been accustomed to look upon myself 
as a gentleman for the last fifteen years or so. It may be a mis- 
take — probably it is — but it is a little idiosyncrasy which does no 
one much harm.” 

For a moment an odd expression flitted through the girl’s eyes, 
or to be more strictly correct, an expression came where none had 
been before, for her eyes were singularly cold and lifeless. She 
was occupied with the duties appertaining to her office — polish- 
ing decanters, arranging symmetrically inverted wineglasses and 
tumblers upon the marble counter, and seeing that a plentiful 
supply of each brand of whiskey was ready, for Myra’s Bar 


MYRA’S BAR. 


9 


boasted of seventeen different distillations in Scotch whiskeys 
"alone. 

She glanced towards the heavy-featured man who was the sole 
occupant of the little room of which she was the presiding divin- 
ity and — almost spoke. Her lips were parted for an instant, and 
then they closed again with the odd upward pressure. If any 
man or woman in the world had reason to be thankful for Samuel 
Crozier’s idiosyncrasy, this girl most assuredly was that human 
being. 

Of all the frequenters of this small curtained room at the back 
of Myra’s Bar, he was the only man who took her seriously, who 
gave her credit for being something more than a beautiful ma- 
chine whose duty it was to smile at doubtful jokes, ignore double 
meanings, and pass from morning till night glasses of a hundred 
different intoxicating liquors across a marble counter into unsteady 
hands. There were other gentlemen among these thirsty souls, 
men with true and gentle hearts perhaps, with deep-hidden hopes 
and aspirations ; but they reserved the graver sides of their lives 
for other moments. They dropped into Myra’s on their way to 
their engraving- shops, after hospital hours, or before the stage- 
doors were open ; and they came to discuss the newest play, the 
latest book, or the best picture. They never drank very much, 
but they talked a great deal, and laughed more. Myra’s Bar was 
no place for gravity. 

Crozier took up the book again, and slowly turning over the 
pages, looked at the illustrations critically. To the letter-press he 
gave no heed. Perhaps the poems were familiar to him, or, more 
likely still, he did not care for such stuff, although there was a 
well-read look about his face. The drawings were exquisite, soft, 
delicate, and full of subtle meaning. The hand that guided the 
pencil might almost have held the pen. It was a well-known col- 
lection, but never had such an edition appeared before, never had 
Longfellow’s thoughts met with such a sympathetic exponent. 

Crozier rarely talked of himself. That subject was laid aside 
by his action of taking up the book. 

“Yes, Syra,” he said, in a business-like tone, “there is good 
work here — better work than sawing bones and making pills.” 

“And drinking gin and bitters,” added the girl, with a faint 
suggestion of severity in her tone. Her back was turned towards 
him, and a very graceful back it was, She was wiping the dust 


10 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


from the shelves, which rose in a tier up to the ceiling, all glittering 
with full and brilliantly labelled bottles. Crozier looked up with 
slightly raised eyebrows. 

“ Perhaps,” he said, cynically ; and he pushed his empty glass 
across towards her, adding at the same time, “I’ll have a little 
more poison, please.” 

She turned and gave him some whiskey from a small glass 
barrel, measuring the quantity rapidly and dexterously with a sil- 
ver vessel shaped like a tiny tumbler. 

He opened his light top-coat in order to take a cigar from an 
inner pocket, and in doing so displayed that he was in dress 
clothes. The manner in which he wore them seemed to imply 
that he was in the habit of donning such apparel every night. 

“ Have you been singing to-night?” asked the girl, carelessly. 

“ No ; I have been to the opening of the new comic opera,” he 
replied, with a cleverly suppressed yawp ; “‘Minette,’ they call it. 
But I came away early ; I could not stand it. Very poor music, 
very badly sung. Syra, mark my words, these comic operas, red- 
olent of — of — ” he hesitated, and looked at her quizzically, “ of 
gin and bitters, let us say — reeking with Strand slang, over- 
whelmed with vulgar ‘ business,’ and disfigured by stupid * gag ’ 
— are dancing over the grave of music, deceased, and repro- 
duced in painted wax-work like Madame Tussaud’s defunct he- 
roes.” 

Beneath his thick cloak of bitter cynicism the man really felt 
what he was saying. Had Syra been a reader of newspapers she 
would have found a strangely ambiguous criticism’ in several of 
the “ dailies ” next morning, which one and all left a very vague 
impression of the merits of “Minette,” and in no way coincided 
with the opinion just expressed. But Syra was not thinking of 
the opera at all. 

“Was Mr. Valliant with you?” she asked, indifferently. 

“ No,” was the prompt reply. “ I have not seen him since this 
morning. No doubt he will be coming in soon.” 

“ I wish he would not come in so often.” 

“ Syra,” said Crozier, reproachfully, “ that is not a business-like 
remark. I have endeavored for some years — years, no ! let us say 
months — to make you look at things and men in a business-like 
manner. I am disappointed !” 

The girl laughed, but did not look towards him. 


MYRA’S BAR. 


11 


“ One cannot always be business-like,” she replied, in her neat 
way. 

“ Why not ? Everything goes ; youth, illusions, pleasure, whis- 
key, and even music. Only work stays with us. Therefore let 
us be business-like. Besides, your remark was rude. Mr. Yalliant 
is my friend.” 

“ One would hardly think so.” 

“ Indeed,” said Crozier, with great serenity. “ Am I to under- 
stand that you are of opinion that Samuel Crozier’s friendship is 
a doubtful acquisition ?” 

She laughed again in a terribly mechanical way, and shrugged 
her shoulders saucily. 

“ As you like.” 

“ Then please pass me the water. I will drown this amber liq- 
uid and my dull grief at the same time.” 

She handed him the carafe, and turned away again, standing 
with her two hands — a little reddened by constant contact with 
beer and other liquors — resting upon the marble counter. It was 
thus that she stood when the little bar-room was full ; at attention, 
surrounded by her innumerable bottles, with all her decanters at 
hand, in front of the cash-drawer. 

He filled up his glass with grave deliberation, and a hand that 
was as steady as a rock. 

“ There is something,” he said, as he raised the glass, “ in the 
atmosphere of this secluded chamber to-night which is new to me. 
Smoke I see ; chops, kidneys, and other delicate odors of the grill 
I detect, wafted in no doubt from the neighboring supper-room 
where the portly Myra dispenses hospitality at a fixed and mod- 
erate charge. But it is none of these. Neither is it the subtle 
scent of whiskey. It is impalpable, indefinite. Syra, is it Virt- 
ue?” 

Beneath her lowered lids she glanced sidewise towards him, 
and her lips curled slightly in a smile which was almost sickly 
and quite unpleasant. She was accustomed to Crozier’s grave 
jocularity, and rose to the occasion at once. 

“ If it is,” she said, merrily, “be very careful how you inhale it.” 

He smiled at the sally, and rose from his seat to cross the room 
towards the fireplace, where a few cinders lingered unheeded. It 
was late in February, and a fire was hardly necessary in the small 
curtained room where the gas burned all day. With a flip of his 


12 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


finger he threw the ashes from his cigar cleverly into the cinders. 
Then he turned and walked slowly towards her. 

“There is something wrong to-night,” he said. “What is it? 
Have you had a young Christian in here from Exeter Hall, or has 
some mistaken person been leaving tracts ?” 

There was a subtle difference in his tone, so slight and so deli- 
cate that no one who did not know his manner very well would 
have suspected that he was quite serious. The girl, however, 
whose human studies must have been very interesting and strange- 
ly contradictory, knew at once that he expected a grave reply. 

“ Is it right,” she asked, quickly, “ that a man who can draw 
like that,” and she laid her hand upon the book, “ should spend 
his time drinking and smoking in here ?” 

Again he looked at her in a gravely quizzical manner. 

“ Is it right,” he asked, solemnly, “ that a man who can sing 
like Sam Crozier should make music for the common herd of St. 
James’s Hall ? Is not his place in another sphere with a golden 
harp of his own ? Is it right that Miss Faucit, the fair and gra- 
cious, otherwise known as Syra, should dispense liquid nourish- 
ment to Tom, Dick, and Harry, receiving in return badly turned 
compliments ? Is anything right, Syra — life, trouble, woe, and 
joy ?” 

“ Oh, don’t play the fool !” exclaimed the girl, impatiently. 

“ My dear Syra, I am as grave as a judge. The world would be 
a dull place if there were no fools, or no wise men with a turn 
for playing the fool.” 

“ I wish,” said the girl, without looking towards him, “ that 
you would keep Mr. Valliant away from here, and from all these 
loafers whom he is pleased to call his friends.” 

“ I ?” he exclaimed, in wonder. “ What have I to do with it ?” 

“ You are the only man who has any influence with him, the 
only one among them all who knows anything of his private life, 
who is acquainted with his people.” 

Crozier raised his glass to his lips, and took a slow, meditative 
sip. His face was very grave when he set it down again, and his 
deep-set eyes were overshadowed. 

“ Why this interest in Valliant?” he asked, pointedly. 

She met his deep, searching glance with calm assurance. Then 
suddenly she laughed in his face and shook her head merrily. 

“How funny !” she exclaimed. “Did you really think — ” 


MYRA’S BAR. 


13 


“ No,” he interrupted, “ I thought nothing. Thinking does not 
lie in my line of country. I merely asked a question.” 

■‘And I will answer it. This interest in Mr. Yalliant comes 
from the fact that he is too good for such a life as he is drifting 
into. You and he are different — different from the rest of them. 
You may not dress so well, you may not be so rich, but — but you 
know what I mean.” 

“ I suppose I do,” he replied, swinging his leg and glancing up 
at the clock. “ But I don’t think you can accuse me of leading 
him astray. He came up to town to pass his exams and go 
through the hospital. Is it my fault that he should have fallen 
into the fastest set ? It was bound to be the case ; the cleverest 
men, as a rule, are the fastest, and Yalliant is the sort of fellow to 
be at the front wherever he may be. He is not a rear-rank man.” 

“ But you can hold him back.” 

“ Perhaps,” said the man, with an odd, conscious look upon 
his powerful face. “Perhaps I do hold him back. Perhaps, 
Syra. I know him better than you. Has it never struck you 
that he is the sort of man who can never be influenced by strong 
measures — a man who is as difficult to lead or hold back as a 
woman ? He cannot bear the curb and spur.” 

He rose and walked towards the heavy curtains which, falling 
together across a broad door-way, separated the inner from the 
outer apartment. There were a few men in the larger room 
where Myra held sway second-rate actors whose evening duties 
were over, and journalistic loafers. They were all talking in loud 
tones of matters dramatic, and there was an attendant clink of 
glasses. The odor that came through the curtains was only that 
of the little room intensified and more heavily laden with the 
smell of cooking. 

Syra stood beside the coffee-urn absently fingering a pair of 
sugar-tongs, and when Crozier returned she did not desist or 
look up. 

“You were rude just now,” he said in his habitual semi-ban- 
tering way ; “ I will return it. Do you think for a moment, 
Syra, that I come here because I have fallen a victim to your 
charms? Does it seem a likely thing that I should prefer this 
little room, with its smoky, smelly atmosphere, to a comfortable 
arm-chair and an evening paper across the road at the Savage 
Club?” 


14 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


The girl threw the sugar-tongs carelessly on to the marble 
counter, where they fell with a loud clang, and glanced up at the 
clock. 

“Then,” she said, curtly, “you are watching him.” 

“ I am doing what I can.” 

“ Why not warn his — his people ?” 

He laughed and contemplated the end of his cigar compla- 
cently. 

“I have not trodden the stony paths of existence for thirty 
years, young woman, without learning to mind my own busi- 
ness.” 

“ Which means that I will do well to mind mine, I suppose?” 

“Which means exactly what*, it says. What I intend to be 
understood I usually say in a manner which allows of no misun- 
derstanding. It is very good of you to think of the matter at 
all. Be careful ! Here they come !” 


CHAPTER II. 
syra’s admirers. 

“Myra’s” was situated not in the Strand itself, but in a nar- 
row street running upward and northward. An old lease, a cen- 
tral position, and a faithful clientele had combined to ruin Myra’s 
trim figure and make her active life a happy one. Among her 
regular patrons were a few journalists, a few actors, and a fgw 
engravers, but her kedge-anchor was Saint Antony’s. The stu- 
dents at that Samaritan establishment never swerved from their 
devotion to the little chop-house. Syras came and Syras went, 
but Saint Antony’s remained forever. Rotund and jovial Myra 
was part of their education, and in her motherly way she per- 
formed a vast deal of good among the boys learning in the cheer- 
iest possible manner the saddest profession a man can undertake. 

Myra could cook a chop in the most dainty way, and with a 
broad warm smile she had grilled many a succulent kidney for 
pale-faced students whose appetites had suffered from a grim 
morning’s work in the accident ward. More than one anxious 
mother to whom distant London was a den of thieves and haunt 


SYRA’S admirers. 


15 


of sirens, owed an unsuspected debt to this portly dame. More 
than one medical student had been saved from going just a little 
too far by a laughing word of caution, delivered with uplifted 
fork and face all glowing from proximity to the spluttering grill. 

It may be thought that the inner room with its goddess was 
rather a blot upon the fair reputation of “ Myra’s,” but in excuse 
there is much to be said. Profits are large, and Myra argued 
comfortably that if her supporters did not drink there they would 
drink somewhere else. She was a remarkably quick reader of 
human faces, and the young persons selected to assume charge 
of the inner bar and take the inevitable name of Syra were inva- 
riably such as the stout prcfprietress ambiguously called “good 
girls.” , 

It will perhaps be politic to 'confess at once that Saint Anto- 
ny’s was not a steady hospital. The disciples of the revered 
saint were not young men from whose ranks many promising 
Sunday-school teachers could have been selected, but (like many 
of us) they were less black than it was their good or evil fortune 
to be painted. Very few of them went irretrievably to the dogs. 
Hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder they danced merrily 
enough down the slope, but before the impetus was allowed to 
gain mastery over their legs, some one or other (it was never 
quite known who) would give a check and set a firm foot ; then 
shoulder pressed closer to shoulder and hand clasped hand more 
bravely. 

These cheery followers of JEsculapius now trooped through 
Myra’s apartment with many an evening greeting for the lady 
herself. The curtain of the inner room was drawn hastily aside, 
and a voice called out, “ Syra, my own, accept thy slave’s devotion.” 

The man who spoke entered the room first. When he per- 
ceived Crozier the smile that lighted up his sharp, merry face 
wavered for a minute. 

“ Ah, Sam,” he said, “ how are you, old fellow ?” 

He was of medium height, of slight and graceful build, with 
small, frail hands and feet. His pallor, which was remarkable, 
had no disagreeable association of ill-health with it, for his com- 
plexion was singularly clean and cream-like. It was the steady, 
unchangeable whiteness of a refined Italian, which remains un- 
altered morning, noon, and night; through health and sickness, 
through joy and grief. Seen in repose the features were good; 


1C 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


a small straight nose, red lips, and a dainty chin thrust forward ; 
but repose was rare. The lips were always curling in laughter, 
the eyes were always dancing with merriment ; and yet he never 
laughed aloud — there was no voice in his mirth. He was clean- 
shaven, and there was no blue shade about his lip or chin to sug- 
gest that a luxuriant growth of mustache or beard called for a 
very sharp razor. 

In an instant his quick dark eyes lighted upon the book which 
lay among the decanters near to Syra’s hand, and he turned to 
the comrades who had followed close upon his heels. 

“ Friends, Romans, sawbones,” he exclaimed, oratorically, “ the 
cat has escaped. I am at liberty to tell you that my ship has 
come home. Breathe into Syra’s shell-like ear what your health 
requires and refer her to me. To-night I bury the scalpel and 
start growing an artistic head of hair !” 

They were accustomed to surprises of this description, these 
decorous revellers. Among them were men who had already 
written books and painted pictures ; others there were with man- 
uscripts and canvases secretly treasured. Tom Valliant had made 
a hit. All the better for Tom Valliant! Drink to his success 
at his expense, without thought of envy. 

While the noisy group clustered round Syra and peered over 
each other’s shoulders at the book, calling out their requirements 
as they did so, Valliant drifted nearer to Crozier, who was still 
sitting on a high stool beside the marble counter swinging one 
leg idly. 

“ Well, Sam,” he said, almost gravely, beneath the cover of 
many voices; “ well, old fellow, what do you think of it?” 

Already he was looking the other way, laughing in his soft, 
noiseless way at some sally, and his eyes were still dancing with 
merriment when he turned again for Crozier’s reply. 

“ It is good,” said the singer, kindly, “ very good ; and the 
drawings have not been spoiled by *’ e engraving. There is a 
long life in the future for that book. 

Valliant seemed scarcely to have heard. He was waving his 
hand above his head to attract Syra’s attention. She was very 
busy, and her pink fingers flitted from one decanter to another 
with marvellous and noiseless celerity. At length she looked up, 
and Valliant called out, “Oh, faithless one, think of me 1” 

She knew only too well what he wanted, and the little silver 


SYRA’S ADMIRERS. 


17 


measure came into use. Her movements were so quick that there 
seemed hardly time for her to have measured at all. 

When the glass was handed to Valliant he raised it and looked 
at the quantity critically, with, however, the ready smile in his 
eyes. Then he turned with mock indignation to the man nearest 
to him, a tall and solemn medical student. 

“ I really believe,” he exclaimed, “ that Syra gives me short 
measure on purpose.” 

He took another glass that happened to be within reach, and 
held the two side by side above his head. 

“ Look here, you fellows,” he cried ; “ compare these two, and 
tell me when and how and where I have done aught to deserve 
such treatment from Syra !” 

The men laughed aloud and groaned in unison, depreciatively. 
Crozier alone was grave, but his gravity was never forbidding, 
never cold ; there was a sympathetic warmth about it which was 
almost as good as a smile. He glanced towards the girl, and from 
his position at the end of the counter he could see her where she 
had laughingly taken refuge behind the coffee-urn. His deep- 
set eyes met a distinct and unmistakable glance of appeal, which 
was more remarkable from the usual dulness of the girl’s expres- 
sion. Moreover, she was scarlet. Syra was blushing a deep, 
painful blush beneath her powder, such as had not swept up- 
ward to those dainty cheeks for many a year. 

Then Crozier suddenly joined in the general laughter, and raised 
his mellow voice with a quiet consciousness of power, a well- 
founded knowledge of the fact that he would be heard and 
heeded. 

“It is,” he said, “because you fellows hurry her so. One 
would think that you had not seen a tumbler or a wineglass for 
months. If you want full measure you should come in quietly 
as I do before the theatres are out. I really think, Syra, you 
ought to fill that up.” - ni 

The girl took the g. 'and obeyed him, without, however, 
glancing in his direction. 

“ Mr. Crozier,” she said, lightly, to Yalliant, “ was accusing me 
just now of being unbusiness-like. As soon as I display the true 
spirit of commerce, you pounce upon me.” 

“Never mind what he says, Syra,” replied Valliant, raising the 
glass to his lips. 

2 


18 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


He took a long draught and set it down half empty. Near to 
it was the glass of the solemn medical student, who happened to 
be looking the other way. It contained much more, and with 
great gravity Valliant changed the glasses, keeping the fuller one 
for himself. 

“Never mind, Syra,” he continued, “I bear no malice. I love 
my Syra with an S because she swindles. As a proof of my 
forgiveness accept these lilies which have adorned this manly 
breast all the evening.” 

With a careless laugh he turned away, while the girl placed 
the flowers in her belt. He began discussing a new play with 
one of the actors in it. It happened to be the man who played 
the lover’s part, rendering it with exquisite pathos, and yet the 
two laughed and joked. No one was allowed to be grave, to 
treat anything seriously, when Tom Valliant was near. 

Crozier was still seated at the end of the bar, still swinging 
his strong leg idly. His arm was resting on the counter, and his 
finger and thumb restlessly polished his glass up and down. He 
was watching Syra meditatively, his lips slightly parted, his eyes 
contracted in his usual indifferently speculative manner. 

“ Poor Syra !” he was thinking ; “ I wonder how long she has 
been playing that trick upon him.” 

Presently some new arrivals made their appearance, and the 
little room became uncomfortably crowded. Among them were 
a few actors of clean-washed appearance and red-rim mad eyes, but 
perhaps the most conspicuous was a tall, pale-faced youth immac- 
ulately dressed, clean-shaven, and aristocratic. He was a medical 
student, the son of a well-known west-country physician. A new 
disciple of St. Antony’s, and the best-dressed man in the room. 
Perhaps he was too well-dressed. His clothes had not the appear- 
ance of sitting easily, and there was an awkward, self-conscious 
suggestion of discomfort in his gestures. Walter Varden was a 
gentleman, but he had the misfortune to be a fool. Now, among 
ladies a fool often gets on very well if he has the good-sense to 
stop short of familiarity in his friendships ; but men soon discover 
the depth or shallowness of each other’s intellects. St. Antony’s 
voted Walter Varden a fool, and they were quite right ; but he 
was accorded an ungrudging welcome at Myra’s, and his foolish- 
ness was good-naturedly ignored. He was not in reality a bad 
fellow, and it was convenient for the lesser wits to have a butt 


i 


SYRA’S ADMIRERS. 


19 


always at hand upon which to practise. Also, he had plenty of 
money, and was an easy victim for borrowers. 

His manner of addressing Syra and the heavy style in which 
he attempted to establish a flirtation grated upon the nerves of 
some of the older men. He now came in, and with a vacuous 
nod for any one whose policy it might be to wish him good-even- 
ing, leaned awkwardly across the counter close to Crozier. 

“Syra,” he said, mysteriously, with a beckoning finger upraised. 

In a few moments she came towards him without hurrying. 
The men who happened to be near turned to hear what he might 
have to communicate. There was a tacit understanding among 
the admirers of Syra that no monopoly was to be allowed, and 
this new-comer seemed inclined to ignore the wholesome rule. 

“Syra,” said Yarden, in a patronizingly lowered voice, “I have 
two tickets for a ball at the Westminster town-hall to-morrow 
night; I’ll take you. There will not be a soul I know there, and 
we will have a lark.” 

She laughed in her easy mechanical way, and turned aside to 
attend to some one else. 

“ No, thanks,” she said. 

“Why not?” he asked, in a louder tone, quite content to im- 
press his listeners with the fact that he was a “ devil of a fellow.” 

She shook her head smilingly, but made no answer. 

“ No, I say. Tell me why,” argued the ladykiller in his most 
“ devilish” style. 

“/ will tell you why,” said Crozier, suddenly, and his quiet 
voice caused a momentary silence. Saint Antony’s knew that 
Varden was going to be taken down a peg. “I will tell you 
why !” 

“ Onh !” said the young swell, doubtfully. 

Crozier looked up at him with perfect gravity, without remov- 
ing the cigar from the corner of his mouth. 

“ Yes. She will not go, because I won’t let her. Syra never 
goes to balls except with me and her aunt, who is kind enough 
to chaperon us.” 

There were a few moments of strained silence, and then an 
actor gravely broke the spell, leaving Varden quite puzzled as to 
whether he had been snubbed or made to appear a fool. 

“ That is Crozier !” said the actor in the background. He was 
a small man, and could not see over his companions’ heads. 


20 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ That is Crozier, I am sure. A song, a song — come along, old 
fellow !” 

Yes, a song ! Give us a song !” called out various voices. 

Then the actor who had first spoken raised his voice again. 

“ Crozier has a new song,” he cried. “ Encored seven times at 
St. James’s Hall last night. We’ll have that or nothing. If he 
does not sing that we will chuck him out of Syra’s presence !” 

The heavy - featured man smiled slowly until his eyes were 
hardly visible, and then — sitting on a high stool, with one mus- 
cular arm resting on the marble counter — he raised a voice that 
never had been given him to ruin in a smoky tap-room. But it 
was not ruined yet — full, deep, and mellow, strong when needed, 
soft and pathetic by nature, he used it with confidence and great 
skill, for he had studied in Naples and Rome. 

The song he sang was hardly appropriate for the occasion, but 
with professional wisdom he left that matter to his audience. 
They had asked for the new ballad, and he gave it. Perhaps 
there was beneath this strong fellow’s cloak of genial cynicism a 
little pride, a small wish to make the best of his great gift, though 
it was only in a little bar-parlor in a quiet street where the pass- 
ers-by would take him for some drunken reveller. Impresarios 
and managers said that Crozier took almost a delight in refus- 
ing good offers. His voice was in great demand ; it was at its 
full strength, and equal to any amount of work. Probably there 
were men in that very room who had gladly accepted engage- 
ments laughingly and heedlessly refused by him. There were 
critics present also, men who wrote and composed and lived in a 
work-a-day atmosphere of music. Without accompaniment, in a 
choking atmosphere, the good-natured singer sang to them ; good- 
natured, not because he was too weak to refuse, as most good- 
natured people are, but because he could well afford to give. No 
man raised glass to lip, no match was struck, and all smoked 
noiselessly, while Syra stood quite still with her hands upon the 
counter in front of the cash-drawer listening to the words : 

“Graybeard crept through a village street, 

His head was bowed, his weary feet 
Were bruised and torn. 

A staff in his right hand he bare, 

The wind played with his silver hair — 

His coat was worn. 


THE FUTURE. 


21 


“Onward he passed through golden corn, 

Weary with toil from early morn 
He cast him down. 

A youth and maiden came along, 

Grave she ; but he, with noisy song 
Learned in the town. 

“ ‘ What seek you in this sunny field ?’ 

Graybeard, to whom he thus appealed, 

Slow raised his head — 

‘A Phantom Future I pursue!’ 
***** 

‘ Methinks we seek the same as you,’ 

The maiden said.’* 

When the applause had died away the occupants of the little 
room were disturbed by the advent of Myra, who drew aside 
the heavy curtains and stood smiling in the door-way. 

“ I am sorry, gentlemen,” she said, with good-huuiored severity, 
“ but time is up.” 

As they all trooped out a few minutes later, Crozier slipped 
his hand through Yalliant’s arm with an undeniable though gen- 
tle touch. 

“ Come to my rooms,” he said, “ and have a smoke. I want to 
talk to you about that book.” 


CHAPTER III. 

THE FUTURE. 

Crozier’s rooms were in the Temple. His quiet, unobtrusive 
windows looked into other quiet unobtrusive windows. In the 
centre of the small quadrangle a single lime-tree existed. It 
never grew in bulk or stature, neither did it die. Every spring it 
unclasped its gummy buds and threw a delicate green reflection 
upon the dusty windows. Early in the autumn it shed its leaves 
and closed negotiations for the winter. Lime Court would have 
been a sorry abode without its leafy godfather. The men who 
lived there would have sorely missed their connecting link, their 
mutual pride, and topic of conversation. It was by the merest in- 


22 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


cident that their affection for the tree was one day discovered. It 
happened that a legal cat of weighty person mounted its branches 
one spring morning for the purpose of taking a siesta in the warmth 
of the sun. About breakfast-time the outrage was discovered, and 
from every window came protestation in sacrificial form. One 
man devoted half a muffin to the cause of protection, another had 
the satisfaction of dealing a heavy blow upon the cat’s left ear 
with a dainty slipper worked for him by fair and affectionate 
fingers. Crozier himself did terrible execution with a volley of 
loaf-sugar followed closely by the bread-knife. 

The rooms. were melancholy and exceedingly comfortable, with 
thick red curtains, a number of low arm-chairs, and a subtle 
homely odor of tobacco smoke in the atmosphere. 

Valliant entered the sitting-room first and turned up the gas 
with the air of a man who is quite at home and amid familiar 
surroundings. A few letters lay upon the table, and nodding his 
head towards them he turned and walked towards the fire. 

“ Billets-doux /” he said, lightly; “you had better read them 
while my back is turned, so that I may be spared the sight of a 
blush upon that leathery cheek !” 

He turned his back towards the room and stood, with one foot 
upon the fender, gazing into the fire, while he sought slowly in 
his pockets for pipe and pouch. The fire, dancing and flickering, 
showed his face to be quite grave, almost melancholy. 

“ More likely to be bills,” muttered Crozier, as he stood with 
his hands thrust into his pockets, gazing speculatively and lazily 
at the envelopes. 

“ Then do not open them, that these ears may be spared the 
shock of an expletive.” 

Crozier sat down slowly and comfortably in a deep soft arm- 
chair. He left the letters lying on the table, and raised his close- 
set and earnest eyes towards his companion. 

“ Well,” he inquired, “ what is the next move?” 

Valliant turned and looked down at him with a bright smile. 

“The next move is to fill my pipe,” he answered, “and then 
suggest that you should lend me a match.” 

This brought forth no smile. A solemn humor had come over 
the singer. He was determined to make Valliant talk sensibly of 
his affairs. 

“Are you going to give up medicine?” he asked, pleasantly. 


THE FUTURE. 


23 


The younger man lighted his pipe. 

“There is some vast idea surging about in your brain, Sam. 
Let us have it. You will feel all the better for it, my boy !” 

He sat down in a deep chair, and stretched his slight, graceful 
legs out with a jerk. Crozier took the pipe from his lips and 
spoke slowly, with a grave masterfulness that betrayed his wish to 
act well by his young friend. 

“ That book,” he said, “ will be all over the country in a few 
weeks. You must follow it up. A man with a talent like that 
has no right to neglect it. His duty towards himself and the 
public is to make the most of it, cultivate it, and improve it. 
What are you grinning at ?” 

“ Stone-throwing is a risky pastime,” explained Yalliant, with a 
light laugh. 

“ It does not matter when all the panes are broken,” replied 
the singer. 

For an instant Yalliant looked grave. He changed his posi- 
tion slightly, and pressed the burning tobacco into his pipe with 
the end of a cedar-wood pencil. 

11 Are they broken, Sam ?” he asked, seriously. 

“ I don’t know,” replied Crozier, with a smile. “ It feels a lit- 
tle draughty at times. But that is not the point. It seems to me 
that the time has come for yon to look seriously to the future. 
One hundred and twenty pounds a year is not a bad income for a 
medical student, but it is not much for a man of twenty-five. If 
you are going to stick to the bone-sawing business it is time you 
began to work, and make a name at the hospital. If not, you 
ought to throw aside the whole affair at once, and take to art as 
a profession !” 

“A profession,” echoed Valliant. “A profession is a thing 
that a man spends the best years of his life in learning, and by the 
time he is sick of the whole business he begins to make a small 
income by it.” 

“ You are speaking of men who are driven into a profession 
when they are too young to know what they are about.” 

“ Seems to me I am being driven at the present moment.” 

“ Not by me,” said Crozier, gravely, “ but by the force of cir- 
cumstances.” 

Valliant moved uneasily, and smoked in silence and hastily for 
some moments. Once or twice his quick gay eyes rested on Ins 


24 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


companion’s face. This man of thirty had quietly assumed a 
place in his existence during the last four years. Before that he 
had not known him, and the remembrance of his first impression 
was still a tangible thought. To the youthful man of twenty- 
one this grave singer had at first appeared to be much more than 
five years his senior. But Crozier had never lost sight of him, 
never made one backward step in the steady progress of friend- 
ship. The disparity in years never disappeared, but it came to 
be a tacitly recognized thing, and one that conveyed no sense of 
discomfort or estrangement with it. It was part of their friend- 
ship. Crozier neglected, perhaps purposely, one great aid to 
mutual sympathy. He rarely spoke of himself, and never com- 
pared Valliant’s escapades, of which he heard sooner or later, 
with similar experiences passed through by himself in earlier 
years. And yet Valliant never doubted that his grave friend had 
many strange passages in life of which he could have told. There 
was about his strong, immobile face a quiet suggestion of experi- 
ence. The man had evidently passed through the mill, and the 
result was by no means a failure. He was a little hardened, a 
little sceptical ; perhaps a trifle aimless, but the true metal was 
close-knit and bright beneath the outward coat of indifference. 

At length Valliant spoke, with a faint under-note of humor in 
the sound of his momentarily grave voice. 

“ That old gentleman,” he said, “ of whom you sang this even- 
ing — with the worn coat and the silver hair — was probably a pro- 
fessional man.” 

Crozier made no reply for some minutes, and the only sound 
that broke the silence of Lime Court was the distant note of a cat 
stridently lamenting its lot. Presently a second feline voice 
joined in harmoniously. 

“ The waits,” suggested Valliant, in a whisper, with an irrepress- 
ible twinkle in his eye. 

His companion smiled, and roused himself suddenly from his 
reverie. 

“If you won’t take to art as a profession,” he said, briskly, 
“take to it as an amusement. You will do better amusing your- 
self with art than busying yourself with medicine.” 

“ I hate making plans. Life is but a fleeting shadow, Samuel.” 

“ So do I, for myself. There is a sort of melancholy satisfac- 
tion, however, about making them for other people, because one 


THE FUTURE. 


25 


is perfectly sure that they never will be carried out. If you are 
not going to make plans, what do you propose doing? Allow 
other folks to make them for you, or drift?” 

“Drift.” 

Again Crozier thought deeply, while the smoke rose slowly in 
reflective clouds from his lips to the dusky ceiling. 

“ I have done a good deal of that in my time,” he murmured. 
“ It is not satisfactory work. My idea is, that you ought to go 
down to Goldheath to-morrow with the book under your arm. 
Show it to your uncle, Mrs. Valliant, and — and your cousin, and 
hear what they have to say on the subject.” 

“Where is that copy you had this evening?” asked Valliant, 
with a peculiar ring in his voice, while he glanced round the room. 

“ I gave it to Syra. She asked for it.” 

Again a silence, broken only by the distant cats, fell upon the 
room. 

“ The waits again,” suggested Valliant. 

This time Crozier laughed suddenly, and with unnecessary 
loudness. The smoke no longer rose from his lips, for the pipe 
had gone out. 

“ I might send them the book,” continued the younger man. 

“ Why not go down ?” 

Valliant’s quick glance rested for an instant on his friend’s face. 

“ Goldheath is a lovely place,” he said, with a smile, “ but the 
wind blows across that moor like a knife. Besides, it is a trifle 
dull at this time of year.” 

The singer relighted his pipe and leaned far back in his chair, 
thus concealing his face. His legs were crossed, and one foot 
swung in a thoughtless and indifferent way. 

“ It would be of no use sending the book unless you went your- 
self. There must be a lot to tell about it, and of course they 
will want to hear everything,” he said, in a steady, business-like 
tone. 

It almost seemed as if the mere mention of Goldheath had 
caused a change to come over the humor of both men. There 
was in the manner of their conversation a subtle and almost in- 
tangible sense of embarrassment. 

“ Oh, there is not much to tell,” said Valliant, speaking rapidly. 
“ In fact — Elma — has seen a good many of the sketches before I 
had any idea of selling them, you know. I did most of them at 


26 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


Goldheath, and finished them here. The house appears several 
times, and — and Elma.” 

“Yes, I know.” 

Crozier’s voice was drowsy. One would almost have said that 
he was half asleep, but his foot swung still. 

“ You recognized it ?” 

“ Yes, I recognized them.” 

“Them ?” 

“ The house and — your cousin,” explained Crozier. 

Then they smoked pensively until the singer left his chair and 
went to the fireplace, where he pressed the burning embers down 
with his neatly shod foot. 

“ I think they would feel it rather strange if you simply sent 
the book by post. It is a long time since you were there.” 

Yalliant was wavering. Beneath his airy manner there was a 
strong will, but he knew that Crozier would ultimately achieve 
his purpose. He invariably did so when he took the trouble to 
be determined — to exert his strong fixity of purpose. 

“If I go,” he said, “you must come too, and sing them that 
song before I produce the book.” 

“ Which song ?” 

“ That one about the old gentleman.” 

“Why should I sing that?” asked Crozier, displaying very 
slight interest. 

Yalliant rose suddenly and sought his hat and stick. He 
stood in front of his friend, ready to go, with his pipe slightly 
elevated and his small chin thrust forward. He leaned upon his 
stick and looked down at Crozier with a gay smile. 

“Because they will be wanting me to waste the living present 
in the pursuit of the wildest goose a man can chase.” 

The singer rose and took his companion’s out-stretched hand. 

“What is that?” he asked, without meeting his friend’s 
eyes. 

“A phantom future,” laughed Valliant. 

Crozier followed him to the door. He went out into the little 
entrance-hall, where their footsteps echoed weirdly. He held 
open the street-door, and Yalliant passed down the worn steps 
into the darkness of Lime Court. 

“ Tom !” cried Crozier, suddenly. 

“ Yes.” The reply came back softly, and the singer knew that 


GOLDHEATH. 


27 


his friend was grave for once. When he spoke, however, there 
was in his tone the old sound of grave badinage. 

“ Were you ever a cricketer?” 

“ I used to bowl wides at one time.” 

“ When I was a kid,” continued Crozier, “ I used to keep 
wicket. I thought I did it very well. At first I was in the 
habit of not raising my hand until the batsman missed the ball ; 
the consequence was that I got a good many in the eye and quite 
a number in the chest. Then I learned to make a grab at every 
ball as if the batsman were not there at all. Seems to me that a 
little wicket-keeping is good training. It is best to grab at ev- 
erything and pretend to ignore the possible obstacles.” 

Valliant stood with his hands thrust deeply into the pockets 
of his light coat, his stick under his arm and his hat slightly 
tilted backward. He looked quizzically up at his friend, who 
stood in the door-way. 

“ Is that all ?” he asked. 

“That is all.” 

“ Thanks. I will make a note of it on my cuff.” 

He performed a pas-seul upon the pavement and presently 
walked off. 

“ Good-night, Samuel,” he called out over his shoulder. 

“ Good-night,” said the mellow voice from the door-step. 


CHAPTER IV. 

GOLDHEATH. 

Where Sussex merges into Surrey there lies a vast sweeping 
moorland, where heather and gorse and whin hold united sway. 
All the chemical fertilizers yet invented, were they combined and 
shaken up in one malodorous sack, could not spoil this golden 
land. The august body which calls itself the Royal Agricultural 
Society could make nothing out of it. A steeple-chase, a cours- * 
ing meeting, or a ramble, but never a turnip, has been associated 
with Goldheath. 

Over the low broken hill, two miles away, there is indeed a 
railway-station on the main line between Portsmouth and Lon- 
don ; but the quick trains never stop there, and the local traffic 


28 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


is limited. Once a week the station-master is kept out of bed 
until eleven o’clock at night to await the arrival of a goods train 
which drops one or two trucks carrying chemical manure, and 
biscuits, cheese, ploughshares, and haberdashery. 

Goldheath has the good -fortune to lie well away from the 
coach-road. The lanes are narrow and ill-kept, consequently the 
ubiquitous bicyclist is rarely met. The little village lying on the 
westward slope of a long sweeping hill gazes meditatively down 
upon the broad moor, of which the farthest limit is lost upon the 
blue slope of a distant range. 

To the south the moorland is bordered by a pine forest, be- 
yond which are meadows, and in the distance arable land. At 
the edge of this forest lies Goldheath Court, a long low house 
composed of a series of gables. It is built of red brick, which 
age has softened and beautified as it softens and beautifies all 
things of which the angles are too sharp and cutting — including 
men and women. The northern facade looks across a large 
though scantily furnished orchard, towards the moor, which is 
divided (as well as the orchard) by a narrow gravelled road 
drawn in a deadly straight line from the last house in the village 
to the front-door of Goldheath Court. This same broad door is 
the only outlet from the northern side, while to the east and 
south every ground-floor window is, so to speak, a door. 

All round the house there is a narrow pavement of green and 
moss-grown stone extending for some three feet outward. Be- 
fore the library window to the east, and the two drawing-room 
windows to the south, this stone pavement is worn white by fric- 
tion, and there are small rounded indentations (where the rain 
collects) showing that the inhabitants of Goldheath Court are in 
the habit of passing freely in and out of the windows. 

The eastward end of the house looks into what is, or was a few 
years ago, called the Walled Garden. From the north-eastern 
angle to the south-eastern a high brick wall extended in a circle, 
broken only by a trellised door upon the north, and another upon 
the south, of which the inner posts were fixed against the house 
itself. To pass through one of those trellised doors is to step 
back one hundred and fifty years into the past. Within that 
circle a quaint old -day peacefulness and melancholy reign su- 
preme. Against the dull red wall are climbing now, gnarled and 
crooked pear-trees, of which the branches have been pressed by 


GOLDHEATH. 


29 


feet once lithe and tiny, now mouldering beneath the sand of 
Goldheath church-yard. Here grow quaint old-fashioned flow- 
ers, simple brier-roses and sturdy tufts of lavender. But the 
pride of the Walled Garden is the huge cedar in the centre, near 
the fountain, which played spasmodically thirty years ago, when 
old Yalliant brought home his little wife. Around the cedar 
grows a strange and wondrous assortment of conifers and leafy 
evergreens. Weymouth pines and spruce overshadow arbutus 
and laurel, while a tall straight larch drops its brown needles 
down upon the repelling arms of a monkey-puzzle, disfiguring it 
sorely. Even in February — Nature’s dullest season — the library 
window looks upon a pleasant verdure. 

Within the northern curve of the wall is ensconced the old 
violet-bed, now carefully protected by straw, and here, crouching 
carelessly upon the gravel-walk, a little maiden sat one sunny 
morning. With her chilled pink fingers she was routing about 
among the straw for the short-stalked, deep-colored little flowers, 
for the white violets were not budding yet. 

Presently she rose and shook her skirts free of dead leaf and 
dust, and also a little dry and powdery snow which had collected 
beneath the box border. She was of medium height, with slight 
square shoulders as straight as an arrow. A dainty girlish form, 
that might have been the growth of seventeen or eighteen years, 
clad in woolly blue serge, with a black leather belt around the 
tiniest waist. Elma Valliant was almost twenty-one, but her 
youthful figure and sweet eyes were those of a school-girl. Be- 
hind such eyes as hers, woman’s brain can think wondrous 
thoughts and never betray them. Daring and demure, innocent 
and wicked by turns, they changed color strangely by artificial 
light. By day they were light in color, of a blue hovering into 
gray. With perhaps a little hope of contradiction she herself 
playfully called them green, but such was not their hue. At 
night the pupil dilated greatly, and her eyes were deep, dark, and 
melting. Very eloquent they might be some day, but now they 
only spoke of lighter things — passing sorrow and ready laughter. 
Her hair had been flaxen at one time, but it was slowly darken- 
ing, while sudden gleams of gold lurked in the stray curls near 
her ears, or low down her white neck. She was generally in a 
hurry, this little maiden, and her hair suffered most becomingly 
from this characteristic. In a most wonderful manner she ar- 


30 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE 


ranged it in less than three minutes, and for the rest of the day 
or evening it was a greater wonder still that the erection survived 
three seconds. 

While she was walking slowly round the circular path towards 
the library window, which stood open, she arranged deftly in a 
small bunch the violets she had just picked. In passing the trel- 
lised door she glanced through the open wood-work and saw the 
old postman slowly making his way up the straight avenue of 
Weymouth pines, which stood gauntly among the leafless fruit- 
trees of the orchard. 

Then she opened the garden door and ran down the avenue to 
meet the ancient letter-carrier, whose rheumatism suddenly ac- 
quired acute severity at the sight of her. Every step of her light 
foot saved him two. 

“ Good-morning, Anson,” she panted, with soft cheeks rosily 
glowing. 

“Good-morning, Miss Elmy. Here’s a bright morning to be 
sure. A lot o’ letters this morning I do think, and one from 
Master Tom.” 

The rosy tint upon her cheeks lost nothing; perhaps it deep- 
ened slightly. 

“A letter from Tom. Oh, I am so glad !” she exclaimed. 

“ To be sure,” replied the postman, as with quavering hands 
clad in ancient leather gloves he assorted his homoeopathic stock 
of correspondence. 

“ Thank you,” she said, taking the letters and her father’s news- 
paper with its printed wrapper. “ Yes, Anson, you are right; 
this is from Master Tom !” 

The old man lingered, gazing at her sweet, flushed face beneath 
his shaggy eyebrows, very kindly. 

“ I suppose he’ll be coming down to see us, miss. He’s not 
been near us for many months now.” 

“ No doubt,” she replied. “ He seldom writes unless he is 
coming. He is very bad at writing, you know, and gives you 
very little work, Anson.” 

“ I wish, Miss Elmy,” said the old man, gravely, “ he’d give me 
a bit more ; I do, indeed.” 

He was not looking at her now, but was busy with his large 
canvas letter-bag. Without looking up he continued, 

“ I wonder now if Mr. Crozicr’s coming with him this time.” 


GOLDHEATH. 


31 


“ I do not know, I am sure, Anson,” replied the girl, reading 
the printed address upon the newspaper wrapper. 

The old man turned a little and looked across the moorland, 
now bleak and brown, with patches of dry powdery snow here 
and there, towards the village. 

“ The old church doesn’t seem the same,” he said, reflectively, 
“ without a Crozier to preach the word to us o’ Sundays. Master 
Sam oughter been there, miss, to be sure he ought.” 

The girl laughed merrily. A moment before she had been on 
the point of turning to go. Now she stood and looked across 
the moor. 

“ I do not think Mr. Crozier would have made a good parson, 
Anson,” she said, lightly. 

“Perhaps not, perhaps not, Miss Elmy. Though to be sure, 
none can tell what’s inside a man till the husk has been scraped a 
bit. But he’s a main good fellow, a main good fellow, Miss 
Elmy.” 

“Yes, Anson,” she said, indifferently, as she turned to go. 
“ Good-morning.” 

“ Good-morning, Miss Elmy,” replied the old man. 

The girl walked slowly up the narrow avenue towards the 
peaceful old house. There were two or three other letters, but 
that from Tom Yalliant received her undivided attention. 

“I wonder,” she murmured, “if he is coming on Saturday! 
This is Wednesday — three whole days before then !” 

She suddenly drew up the soft woollen shawl which had fallen 
a little from her shoulders, and began running towards the trellised 
gate into the Walled Garden. In the library she found her father, 
who was carefully airing the local morning paper before the fire. 

“ There is a letter from Tom,” she cried out, gleefully, as she 
fastened the window. 

“ Ah, I am glad of it.” 

With these words the heavily built man turned towards his 
daughter with a smile of sincere pleasure upon his broad and hon- 
est English face. He pressed his right hand into the small of his 
back — if the word “small” be allowed to pass — and grunted; 
then he crossed the room slowly and kissed his daughter ; straight- 
ening himself afterwards with another grunt. Elma was appar- 
ently accustomed to these sounds of anguish, for the smile never 
left her face. Squire Valliant had the habit of grunting until 


32 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


eleven o’clock in the morning; after that he forgot his lumbago,, 
which was laid aside until bedtime. At ten o’clock at night he 
invariably recollected to place his hand once more in the centre 
of his back and groan, the precise moment of this occurrence be- 
ing usually when he began to mount the broad stairs, candle in 
hand. 

He now sought vigorously in the region of his throat for the 
string of an eye-glass which had as usual been tucked into his 
waistcoat with the end of his black tie. Having fixed the glass 
in his eye, he took the letters from his daughter’s hand. 

“ Yes,” he said, holding one up to the light ; “ that is from 
Tom, undoubtedly ; that is from Tom. Your scapegrace of a 
cousin has remembered his relations at last. Eh, little woman, 
eh? ha, ha!” 

He chuckled, and presently threw the letter down upon the 
breakfast- table. 

“But,” he said, simply, “it is addressed to your mother, so we 
must leave it till she comes down.” 

Elma was engaged in spreading out the London newspaper. 
It was one of her daily duties to smooth it out and cut the pages 
for her father’s convenience in reading. If Squire Yalliant was 
deprived of his morning’s paper he remembered his lumbago, and 
grunted all day. 

“ I wonder,” said the girl, absently, “ if they are coming at 
the end of the week.” 

“ Who ?” inquired her father, carelessly, while he lifted the 
cover off the dish set before him. 

“ Tom, I mean,” she replied, rather hurriedly ; “ I wonder if 
he is coming at the end of the week.” 

The squire made no reply just then. was a slow thinker, 
this honest country gentleman. Born and bred amid these low 
open hills, he had acquired a certain love of openness, and never 
sought for motives in the thoughts or words of others, as towns- 
men love to do. Elma’s little slip had been a slip and nothing 
else, and so he thought no more about it, but turned his atten- 
tion to the domestic arrangements for the end of the week. 

“Is there anything arranged for Saturday — any one coming, 
I mean ?” he asked. 

The girl seated herself beside the fire, crouching low upon the 
fender, and holding her hands to the warmth. 


GOLDHEATH. 


33 


“ I believe,” she replied, “ that mother asked Willy Holdsworth 
to lunch if it proves too hard for hunting. He expects a friend, 
a Mr. Varden, and does not know how to amuse him.” 

“ Hunting !” muttered the squire, and then he laughed, and 
was pulled up suddenly by a violent fit of coughing, of which, 
however, he made the most, holding his back and making a great 
to - do with his lips. “ Hunting !” he gasped ; “ Holdsworth’s 
hunting is a regular farce. He rides like a sailor.” 

The girl looked quickly across the table. Her round, innocent 
eyes rested for a moment upon her father’s genial face. The 
old gentleman sought vigorously for a pocket-handkerchief in 
the tail of his gray tweed coat and wiped his mustache noisily 
with a flourish. 

“ He does many things like a sailor,” said Elma, carelessly. 

“No harm in that; I’ve known some good men in my time 
who were sailors.” 

She looked into the fire for some moments before answering. 
There was a gentle wonder in her eyes, and she rubbed one hand 
slowly over the back of the other, which lay upon her lap. 

“ Yes,” she acquiesced, “ but — ” 

“ But what, little woman ?” 

“ I wonder where he learned to do things like a sailor.” 

The squire smiled a little grimly, and pushing his chair back 
from the table, crossed his legs. Then he glanced at his huge, 
old-fashioned watch. Mrs. Valliant was already five minutes late 
for breakfast, and everything was getting cold, for the air was 
sharp ; but there seemed to be no question of beginning the 
meal without her. 

“ Better not inquire,” he said ; “ better not inquire, I think. 
When a man disappears for eight years and comes back with 
his hair very neat, and a devil-may-care self-possession about 
him, it is best not to ask where he has been. He is very steady 
now, and he is very good to the old people. The past must be 
allowed to go unquestioned, but — but he can’t ride. Can’t ride 
a bit !” 

There was in the old man’s tone a suspicion of forced charity, 
as if he were trying to make the best of a poor bargain, which 
his daughter did not fail to detect. She was a little country 
maiden, not greatly experienced, not too wise, perhaps ; and the 
mysterious portion of her old playmate’s life interested her. It 
3 


34 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


is a lamentable fact that a man, if he is known to have been or 
to be a rake, arouses an interest in the hearts of most women by 
reason of his reputation, and it was something of this spirit that 
caused Elma Yalliant’s thoughts to turn repeatedly towards Will- 
iam Holdsworth. 

At this moment, however, the girl heard her mother’s step in 
the long corridor, and rose from her crouching position without 
undue haste, but in time to be standing up before Mrs.Valliant 
entered the room. 

Mrs. Valliant was rather a colorless little woman ; a worthy 
representative of a generation which was in reality more heart- 
less and colder than the present, although it is not the fashion 
to believe so. She had married late in life, after having ruled 
for some years a spinster household of her own, and thus had 
contracted views and habits of thought which clung to her still. 
Nevertheless, she was in her way a good woman. Thoroughly 
conscientious, truly dutiful, and strictly just, but heartless. Heart- 
less in her love, heartless in her hatred. Smiling rarely, weeping 
never. How she came to be the mother of an impulsive and 
joyous little maiden like Elma it would be hard to say. The 
girl had certainly not inherited from the maternal side her quick 
loving heart, of which the emotions glowed so transparently upon 
her smooth and dainty cheek. Her large bright eyes bore no 
resemblance to the lifeless hazel orbs of Mrs. Valliant. They 
were her father’s eyes, with the quick, eager glance of the true 
sportsman softened into womanly tenderness and coquetry. 

The household arrangements were conducted with a rigid re- 
gard for precedent and custom which was characteristic of the 
mistress. The heartless little woman was in fact an excellent 
house-keeper, loving punctuality at all times ex<iept breakfast, 
for she was a bad riser, exercising a ruthless economy, and tak- 
ing care to provide such dishes as pleased her husband’s taste 
with a punctilious disregard for her own opinion upon the 
matter. 

Elma was the scapegrace of the family. She was invariably 
down in time for breakfast ; but there was no merit in that, for 
her mother was usually late, and at other meals she was often 
in default. It will be remembered that she rose somewhat hur- 
riedly from her graceful but “ unfinished ” posture on the fender 
before her mother entered the room. 


OLD SHIPMATES. 


35 

Mrs. Valliant attended to her duties in connection with break- 
fast before looking at her letters. Then she opened Tom’s en- 
velope first and proceeded to read the contents with a vague 
smile. Tom Valliant was, perhaps, the only human being in her 
circle of friends and relations who was not wholesomely afraid 
of the mistress of Gold heath. 

Presently she laid the letter down beside her plate and said, 

“Tom asks if he may come on Saturday — he and Samuel Cro- 
zier.” 

The squire nodded his head. 

“ Ah !” he said, in a tone which committed him neither to ap- 
proval nor otherwise until his wife’s opinion had been received. 

“ William Holdsworth and his friend Mr. Varden are coming to 
lunch,” said Mrs. Valliant. “ It will be rather heavy for the serv- 
ants, but we must manage as best we can.” 

Very few arrangements were completed without some refer- 
ence to the servants by Mrs. Valliant. She regulated her life 
with a view of suiting their convenience, while their opinion was 
invariably quoted and considered. She was, nevertheless, a strict 
mistress, and rarely kept her domestics for any length of time. 


CHAPTER V. 

OLD SHIPMATES. 

On the Saturday morning, before the dissipated denizens of 
Lime Court were astir, the silence of that sacred nook was broken 
by a sharp, light footstep. Tom Valliant, although a high-spir- 
ited man among his companions, was by no means given to a dis- 
play of hilarity when alone. He never whistled merry airs for his 
own edification, and never sang gently as Crozier was in the habit 
of doing when in his bedroom. 

However, on this bright February morning the medical student 
felt unusually gay. A slight frost had cleared the air and exhil- 
arated tired nature. Nature in this case was represented, however, 
by nothing more important than the lime-tree, which was hard 
and dry and shrivelled. 

On being admitted by a dusty servant with a forlorn cap, he 


36 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


ran lightly up-stairs. The fire was burning in Crozier’s sitting- 
room, but there were no signs of breakfast yet. Valliant passed 
unhesitatingly through into the bedroom which communicated by 
a curtained door. Here he found Crozier on his knees before an 
open Gladstone bag, humming an operatic air to himself. 

“ Packing !” he exclaimed, cheerfully. “ Allow me to assist you.” 

With this purpose in view he took a seat upon the bed, and 
with a quick swing of his right arm sent a pillow flying into the 
open bag, scattering what was already there. Crozier returned 
the missile gravely, and Valliant, warding it off with his foot, sent 
it through the open door into the sitting-room, where it lay upon 
the carpet unheeded. 

Then the medical student lighted a cigarette and watched his 
companion in silence. The singer continued his occupation with 
indolent gravity. 

“ Our new tweed suit is very effective,” said Valliant, presently, 
poising his head sidewise, and gazing critically at his companion. 

Crozier ceased humming for a moment, and pulled down his 
waistcoat with a smile of satisfaction. 

“ I was told that it is a most successful turn-out — by the man 
who made it,” he said, with gentle irony. Then he opened a 
drawer and took therefrom a dress-suit carefully folded. 

“ We have, in addition, a new dress-suit,” said Valliant, with 
an amused smile. 

“It is not new,” said Crozier, quite gravely. “I always keep 
two going.” 

“ Why?” 

The singer did not answer at once. He closed the bag and 
strapped it up vigorously. 

“ One for the shady side, the other for the sunny.” 

Valliant rose and walked slowly to the window. There he 
stood with his hands in his pockets contemplating the lime-tree, 
while a thin spiral column of smoke rose from the end of his ciga- 
rette. 

“Which allegory meaneth what?” he said, indifferently and 
lightly. 

“One for Myra’s and another for Goldheath — one for Syra 
and another for — your cousin,” explained the singer, with a soft 
laugh. “Just ring that bell,” he continued, “and I will order 
breakfast.” 


OLD SHIPMATES. 


37 


Valliant moved slightly, but not towards the bell, which was 
almost within reach, and then he stood swaying from side to side, 
lifting first one foot and then the other. 

“Let us go across to Myra’s for breakfast,” he said, almost 
sharply, as he glanced backward over his shoulder. 

Crozier passed behind him and rang the bell himself, before he 
answered with a persistence which would have surprised a close 
observer had such been there to see. It was so unlike him, so 
directly contrary to his indolent ways of speech and action. 

“ I have not the least intention of going over to Myra’s. It is 
much more comfortable here. I asked you to breakfast; you 
accepted, and you must take the consequences. I have better 
marmalade than Myra, and the forks do not come ‘all hot’ from 
a wooden tub behind the counter.” 

Yalliant laughed in his silent way and said nothing. At this 
moment a voice in the sitting-room called out, 

“ Yess’r !” 

“ Breakfast, please, Mrs. Sanders.” 

“Yess’r !” 

Crozier was still occupied in a methodical, slow way with his 
toilet. When the door of the sitting-room had been closed some- 
what hastily behind the house-keeper, he said, without looking 
towards his companion : 

“The talented Mrs. Sanders is a wonderful woman. You ob- 
serve that there is now no sign of breakfast. In four minutes it 
will be ready upon the table. She has her faults, however. Even 
that wonderful woman has her faults.” 

He drew on his coat and looked critically round the room be- 
fore continuing pensively : 

“ Creaky boots,” he murmured ; “ creaky boots. It is not a 
venial sin, but it serves to show that she is only human after all. 
And — and I have reason to believe that she brings most of the 
breakfast-things up-stairs ;n her pockets. Now I’m ready. Come 
along and witness Mrs. Sanders’s miracle.” 

Yalliant followed his companion into the other room and threw 
the end of his cigarette into the fire. Then he turned, and in his 
usual bantering way said, 

“ Were your dulcet tones delighting the heart of the British 
public last night ?” 

“ Yes, I was singing at a smoking concert.” 


38 


TIIE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“You are a fool, Samuel, to do that sort of thing.” 

“ Why ?” 

“ Well, I suppose you gave your services for nothing. Of 
course it was a benefit.” 

“ Yes.” 

“You shouldn’t do it, mon vieux. Keep your market price 
up. People do not set a high value on what costs them nothing. 
You ought to be making more money than you are making now 
with a voice like yours.” 

“The pot is casting aspersions upon the complexion of the 
kettle,” said Crozier, as he took up the morning paper from the 
breakfast-table. “ I am very happy as I am, my friend,” he con- 
tinued, with lazy good-nature. Mrs. Sanders cooks kidneys per- 
fectly. Lime Court, if not rural, is at least quiet and peaceful. 
My soul hankers not after wealth.” 

“ Did you sing the song about the old sportsman ?” 

“ The old sportsman ?” echoed Crozier, in surprise, as he look- 
ed over the paper towards his companion. “ Which old sports- 
man ?” 

“The venerable wild-goose chaser,” explained Yalliant. “The 
new song you sang the other night at Myra’s.” 

“ Oh yes. I sang it by way of an encore.” Then he continued 
reading the morning news, and did not seem to hear his compan- 
ion’s muttered remark made a few minutes later. 

“ I like that song,” Yalliant said, vaguely and even seriously. 
“ Have you put it in your Gladstone ?” he added later, in a louder 
voice. 

“I think so, but at all events I know it,” was the careless 
reply. 

“ You had much better take it and — and then Elma can play 
the accompaniment. She likes doing so, I believe.” 

Over the newspaper a pair of deep-set earnest eyes were fixed 
upon Valliant’s face. The possessor of the eyes slowly moistened 
his lips. The paper was quite motionless, the strong, heavy- 
featured man then turned away and laid it aside. 

“ Accompanying is never a pleasure,” he said, indifferently. 

There was a short silence, during which the singer brought 
two chairs forward to the table. Then Valliant spoke again. 

“ She once told me that she liked accompanying you,” he said, 
placidly. 


OLD SHIPMATES. 


39 


“ I think it is in my bag,” muttered the singer, in a tone which 
implied that he had no intention of verifying his supposition. 

At that moment Mrs. Sanders bustled into the room, bearing 
an enormous tray. As predicted by Crozier, breakfast was served 
in a few minutes, and the two men sat down. Crozier did the 
honors in a quick deft way, pouring out the coffee and moving 
the cups and plates with a certain noiseless ease. Had Elma 
Yalliant been there she would perhaps have detected a subtle re- 
semblance between his way of moving and that of William Holds- 
wortb, who, she thought, did things like a sailor. It almost 
seemed as if these two men had passed through the same school. 

“ By-the-way,” said the singer, when Mrs. Sanders had left the 
room, “you never told me what Mrs. Valliant said in reply to 
your note. I don’t know whether I am invited or not.” 

Yalliant fumbled in his pockets. 

“I have a letter for you somewhere,” he replied. “I wonder 
where it is.” ^ 

“From Mrs. Yalliant?” inquired the singer, quietly. 

His companion looked across the table sharply, without, how- 
ever, abandoning his search. . 

“ Yes, from the old lady herself.” 

“ Then I suppose it is all right ?” 

“ Oh yes. It is all right and — yes — here is the letter.” 

The note was short, but kindly enough in its stiff wording. 
Merely an invitation to go down to Goldheath with Tom at the 
end of the week and stay as long as was convenient, hospitably 
expressed, but with no heartiness. People with greenish gray 
eyes, around the iris of which there is a distinct light-colored 
rim, are never hearty. There is no impulsiveness, no warmth of 
self-sacrificing love in the soul that is hidden behind such eyes 
as these. 

Tom Valliant took up the letter, which his companion had 
thrown across to him, and read it with a smile in his quick, rest- 
less eyes. 

“ I have seen my respected aunt,” he said, cheerily, “ under 
many different circumstances, but I have never yet seen her sans 
starch.” 

Crozier made no reply to this remark, and presently rose from 
the table to ring the bell and request that a hansom cab should 
be called. 


40 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


They drove to WatejJoo Station through the keen frosty air — 
a pair of cheery, heart-whole men, to all appearance. 

The journey was slow and somewhat uneventful. At the sta- 
tion they found the Goldheath dog-cart under the care of a 
smart young groom, who relinquished the reins to Tom with 
alacrity. 

“ They’re skating this morning, Mr. Tom,” said the young fel- 
low, as he jumped up behind. 

“On the Canal?” 

“Yes, sir. On the Old Canal, and beautiful ice it is. Miss 
Elmy sent me round by the parsonage to ask Miss Gibb to go to 
the Court and take her skates. And I believe there’s some gen- 
tlemen cornin’ over as well.” 

“ What gentlemen ?” inquired Tom, rather sharply, as he clever- 
ly guided the horse round a nasty corner. 

“ There’s young Mr. Holdsworth, sir — him as has been away so 
long ; an’ he’s going to bring a friend, I believe.” 

Tom made some remark to his companion on the front seat, 
and the groom settled himself squarely, with folded arms and a 
stony countenance. 

When they drove up to the door of Goldheath Court the 
squire was upon the step awaiting their arrival. 

“How do, my dear boys, how der do?” he exclaimed, heartily. 
“They have all just gone down to the pond — Elma, that is, and 
Lily Gibb, and those two men. My wife — well — let me see, she’s 
about somewhere — speaking to the servants, no doubt.” 

The two men returned the old fellow’s hearty grip, and then 
proceeded to unpack their skates before the fire in the carpeted 
hall. In a few minutes they all passed out of a glass door at the 
opposite side of the house, not into the Walled Garden, but on to 
a large lawn where the thin snow lay untouched by footsteps. 
There were more cedars here, large solemn fellows with mournful 
slice-like branches touched with white. They skirted the lawn 
and came presently to a railing. This they climbed, and in a 
few minutes stood at the edge of a long narrow strip of water. 
This had once been part of a canal running right through Surrey 
and Sussex, but the Railway Company, fearing opposition, had 
bought up the water-way, with the view of allowing it to fall 
into disrepair. Here and there short stretches had been pre- 
served for irrigation or ornament. 


OLD SHIPMATES. 


41 


Elma Valliant, who was standing on the ice with her skates 
already strapped on, came to meet them at once, followed more 
leisurely by a young lady on skates and two men on foot. After 
the greetings were over a general introduction followed, and the 
men raised their hats vaguely. 

Tom and Crozier immediately shook hands with Varden, ex- 
pressing some surprise at seeing him there. Then Crozier looked 
quietly at Holdsworth, to whom he had been introduced, general- 
ly, a moment before. Holdsworth did not, however, appear to 
notice this glance. 

The two girls then glided away, leaving the four men to put 
on their skates. 

It happened that Holdsworth and Crozier were next to each 
other, and they both saw that their skates were identical, of a 
peculiar Canadian pattern rarely seen in England. The former 
remarked upon this at once, and Crozier, with a low laugh, replied 
that he had noticed the fact. The girls came back in a few 
minutes and found that Tom and Varden had fixed their Acmes 
and were ready. All four then shot away hand in hand in long 
sweeps on the outside edge. 

The two men seated on the bank were still talking about their 
skates. 

“ They take longer to put on, but they never slip when once 
screwed up as Acmes do,” Elma heard Crozier say as she took 
Tom’s hand. 

“There are none like them,” replied Holdsworth. 

“ I have not skated this year,” said Crozier, bending over his 
foot. 

“ Nor I,” was the reply. 

Then the skaters moved away and Elma heard no more. Some- 
thing in the manner of these two men interested her. There was 
in both faces the same slow observant look, and in their strong 
persons there was a distinct resemblance of carriage, notably of 
the shoulders and head. Beside them Walter Varden looked 
lamentably boneless and weak, although he was taller and more 
carefully dressed. 

When they were left alone Crozier raised his head slightly as 
if to make sure that they were out of ear-shot. Then he ceased 
screwing the nut at his heel, and stamped his foot tentatively ofli 
the ice. 


42 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


He turned suddenly towards his companion, and his blue eyes 
seemed to contract. 

“ What devil’s work are you doing here 2” he asked, in a softly 
deliberate way. 

Holdsworth seemed in no manner surprised. He continued 
fixing his skate, but glanced furtively towards his companion’s 
hands, which were lying strong and quiescent upon either knee. 
Then he answered, in a low voice, 

“That is my business.” 

Crozier did not change countenance. He rose to his feet and 
stood upon the ice in front of his companion, looking down at 
him with no hardness in his earnest eyes. 

“ That style will not do with me,” he said, “ you know me 
better than that.” 

“ Hang it, sir — ” began Holdsworth, then he stopped suddenly. 
The last word had slipped from his tongue inadvertently, and he 
looked up with an awkward, embarrassed laugh. 

“ The old habit sticks closely,” he murmured, deprecatingly. 

Crozier’s smile was also tinged with embarrassment, but it was 
perhaps characteristic of the man that he was in no way soft- 
ened. 

“ Did you know I was coming to-day 2” he asked, gravely. 

“Yes.” 

“And you had the cheek to come too 2” 

“ Call it pluck,” suggested Holdsworth, audaciously. He 
dragged at his fluffy fair mustache and glanced at Crozier with 
daring blue eyes as he spoke. 

“ Suppose,” began Crozier, meditatively, “ suppose I had rec- 
ognized you publicly and called you by — by the name you sailed 
under.” 

“ You are not the sort of man, to make a mistake of that de- 
scription,” said the other, coolly, and with no intention of flattery. 

“ It never does to trust too much to luck. It might have been 
very awkward,” insisted Crozier. 

“ I didn’t trust to luck, I trusted to you.” 

“ Then don’t do it again.” This was uttered shortly and with 
a steady tone of determination which Crozier assumed at times, 
and which clashed with his indolent way of taking the world. 
He glided away backward, but Holdsworth was now on his feet 
and skated after him. 


OLD SHIPMATES. 


43 


“ Oh,” he said, in a voice half sneering and half pleading, “ it is 
so easy to hit a fellow when he is down, so confoundedly easy to 
prevent him getting up again.” 

“ Are you trying to get up again ?” asked the singer. 

“ I cannot expect the attempt to be well received at your 
hands,” was the sullen reply. 

They were now skating down the length of the pond towards 
the rest of the party, each in his individual and characteristic 
way — Crozier backward, with a marked ease and assurance of 
movement, Holdsworth keeping close to him, advancing upon 
the outside edge with a greater display of action and even some 
flourish, but not so firmly set upon the ice. 

Crozier glanced over his shoulder before replying. They were 
still some way from the rest of the party. 

“ That is bosh,” he said, quietly, “ and you know it.” 

Perhaps there was a slight softening of tone, or it may have 
been that a sudden recollection arose before Holdsworth’s mind. 
At all events his manner suddenly changed. 

“ Ah, Crozier,” he exclaimed, eagerly, “ you are the only man 
who has gone out of his way to help me. Don’t turn against me 
now. I have tried, man ; I’ve tried hard. Don’t push me down- 
hill now. Give me another chance. I cannot be wholly bad. 
I was a good sailor — remember that. Whatever I was, I made a 
good sailor.” 

“Yes,” replied the singer, absently, “you were a good sailor, a 
better one than I was myself most likely — ” 

Suddenly he stopped, his eyes acquired at that instant a hard, 
almost metallic look. His strong face was fixed and rigid. The 
other saw it and grew ashy pale. 

“ By ,” he whispered, “ your time is not up. I have a 

good memory for dates!” 

“ Look out,” gasped Holdsworth. “ Here is Valliant!” 


44 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER VI. 

PLAYMATES. 

At this moment Tom Valliant skated up to them. 

“Do come,” he cried out, “and see Varden’s figure eight. It 
is certainly the very finest thing of the kind that I have ever seen. 
He does the first loop splendidly, and then sits down.” 

The two men laughed, and followed him at once. Walter 
Varden, who was the worst skater present, was attempting to con- 
ceal the fact under a flow of technical terms and phrases. A sort 
of competition was presently set on foot, and all the party stood 
in a group. In this, Holdsworth undoubtedly came out the best 
man. There was a certain dash and recklessness in his perform- 
ance, which, if of doubtful value in life, is useful upon skates. 
While this was still going on Tom Valliant moved to his cousin’s 
side, and under cover of a loud laugh, in which every one joined 
except Varden, he took her hand and drew her away. 

“Come round the pond with me,” he said ; “ I have something 
to tell you.” 

There may perhaps have been a shadow of hesitation in her 
smile, but she obeyed him instantly, and with crossed hands they 
shot away. 

“ I suppose, Elma,” he said, carelessly, “ that Crozier has not 
spoken to you about me or my affairs.” 

“ No,” she replied, shortly. 

“I did not expect that he had,” continued her cousin. “The 
praiseworthy manner in which the grave Samuel minds his own 
affairs is almost worthy of a better cause.” 

“He has not spoken at all except to say ‘how do you do?’” 
murmured she, indifferently. 

Elma and Tom were almost of the same height, for he was 
not a tall man. He glanced sidewise at her with those quick, 
merry eyes of his, and drew her towards him a little, so that 
his grip was firmer round her fingers, for the ice was hard and 
difficult. 


PLAYMATES. 


45 


“And yet with all his aversion to meddling with other people's 
affairs he is the cause of our being here now.” 

“ Indeed,” she said, laughingly. “ Did he think you required 
a change of air, or did you, as his medical adviser, prescribe the 
same for him ?” 

“ Neither, ma cousine. He was pleased to proclaim it neces- 
sary under circumstances which have arisen that I should come 
down to Goldheath, confess the circumstances, and seek the ad- 
vice of my honored relatives.” 

She looked at him suddenly, with a wondering smile curling 
her lips, which were very red and dainty. 

“ What are the circumstances ?” she asked. “ Though my ad- 
vice can hardly be of much value.” 

He turned quickly, as if about to contradict the last statement, 
but appeared to change his mind. 

“The circumstances,” he began, with mock pomposity, “are 
briefly these : Nearly a year ago Sam gave a bachelor’s party ; 
perhaps you remember it. There were a lot of clever fellows 
there, and not least among these was your devoted admirer — the 
deponent. One fellow played the mandolin, another played 
something else, and I, as usual, played the fool. During the 
evening Sam sang several songs, and among them he sang the 
4 Bridge.’ I don’t know which bridge or what bridge, but he de- 
clared that he was there at midnight as the clock was striking 
the hour. When he had finished singing, one of the men there, 
a well-known publisher, said that he believed that there was a 
fortune to be made by illustrating Longfellow’s Poems, and that 
it ought to be a comparatively easy task. Presently the subject 
was changed, and was not again referred to before the men left. 
When they had all gone, somewhere about three in the morning, 
Sam and I sat down to have a last solemn pipe. After we had 
been meditating upon the political condition of our father-land 
for some time, he took his pipe from his mouth, and looked at 
me in his most gravely melancholy manner. You know the way 
he looks at one when he is going to be rather funny.” 

“ Yes,” said Elma, softly, “ I know.” 

“ I suppose you will start to-morrow morning,” he said, quietly. 
“ I asked him what he was driving at, and he explained that I 
would be a fool not to have a shot at illustrating Longfellow. I 
had a shot, Elma. I tried for it — and — and I’ve won.” 


4G 


TIIE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


He broke off into a short laugh, and looked away past her, 
across the low meadow towards the dark belt of pine-trees. 

“ I am very, very glad,” she said, softly, and in her sweet voice 
there was a thrill of heart-felt sincerity. She was quite grave, and 
his jesting reply must have struck harshly upon her ears. 

“ Sam says it is luck,” he laughed, “ whereas I am of the opin- 
ion that it is genius.” 

“And what are you going to do ?” she asked. “ I suppose you 
will give up St. Antony’s.” 

If she failed to appear excited over Tom’s good-fortune it was 
because she had not seen the book, because she did not know 
how great and assured its success was considered by experts ; and 
if he was disappointed in the manner in which she received the 
news he had only to blame his own off-hand way of imparting it. 
It was often a difficult matter to define exactly where gravity 
merged into jest with Tom Yalliant, and being a sensitive man 
He had received many a little rankling stab from no other reason 
than that be had been misunderstood. 

“ My dear Elma,” he now said, with a smile, “that is precisely 
why I am here. It is because I do not know myself, or do not 
care, that I seek your advice and that of your stern parents.” 

“ Have you told them ?” she asked. 

“ No,” he answered, with a sudden access of gravity. “ No ; I 
wanted to tell you first of all.” 

She was pleased to ignore his gravity. 

“ Because of the superior value of my advice ?” she asked, with 
a flash of mischievous eyes. 

“ Of course,” he answered, laughingly. The group at the end 
of the pond had broken up, and at this moment Crozier passed 
near to them. Tom stopped him. 

“ Sam !” he cried. “ Samuel !” 

The singer swung round and faced them. Yalliant half extend- 
ed his hand as if to invite him to join them, but Crozier did not 
appear to notice it, although Elma’s quick eyes detected the move- 
ment at once. 

“ I have been telling Elma about that book,” said Yalliant. 

“ Ah !” He turned towards the girl at oncS with his slow 
smile. 

“You must congratulate him,” he added; “he has made a 
great hit.” 


PLAYMATES. 


47 


\ 


Then he skated away. The manoeuvre was not well executed. 
His intention of leaving them alone was too obvious, and they 
both experienced a little momentary shock of antagonism towards 
him. Considering that he had been distinctly invited to joiu 
them, the movement was a mistake. 

Tom was annoyed, and changed the subject almost immediate- 
ly, with a murmur to the effect that Elma would see the book 
later. Presently he left her, and his place was taken without 
delay by Holdsworth, whose style of skating suited Elma’s ad- 
mirably. 

Her new companion made himself very agreeable, exercising 
freely a pleasant gift of talking happily upon trifling subjects. 
But Elma was absent-minded. She answered briefly though kind- 
ly enough, and her laugh had that peculiar ring in it which be- 
trays a lack of interest. Presently, however, she accorded a great- 
er attention to him, and even encouraged his sallies by bright 
responses of her own. She had seen that Valliant and Crozier 
were now skating together with the usual kindly exchange of 
chaff, which dispelled a half-conceived fear that there was some 
cloud upon the horizon of their friendship. 

She was very desirous of speaking with Crozier before Tom 
produced the book which promised so well, but no opportunity 
occurred before the luncheon-bell was heard. She even began to 
think that the singer was purposely avoiding her, which is a dan- 
gerous thought to harbor, for it gathers evidence, like a cunning 
attorney, where none exists. 

After luncheon they all returned to the pond, and it was then 
that Crozier had a severe fall. There had been much tumbling 
about, but no one had been hurt. Crozier’s fall, however, was 
something nastier, as he was going a great pace at the time, and 
came down heavily upon his shoulder. Moreover, it was not his 
own fault, which perhaps made matters worse. Walter Varden 
was executing a very elaborate figure, and fell just in time to up- 
set Crozier as he came rapidly backward on the outside edge. 
Both men sat on the ice and laughingly apologized. Presently 
they rose and continued skating, but the singer soon went towards 
a small garden-seat which had been brought to the edge of the 
water. 

“ I am going to smoke,” he said, with grave jocularity, to Tom, 
“ and recover my shattered senses.” 


48 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


From that little garden -seat he watched them all — watched 
Holdsworth skating with Elma, and watched Tom Yalliant watch- 
ing Holdsworth. At the same time he smoked meditatively with 
many a speculative glance at the burning end of his cigar. Occa- 
sionally his deep-set eyes solemnly followed the movements of 
Walter Yarden and Miss Gibb, not that these personages were in- 
teresting, but because they formed a necessary part of the picture. 

He was in no manner surprised when Elma left Holdsworth 
and came towards him. 

“I am a little tired,” she explained, as she took her place at 
his side upon the seat, and then she sat with rather heightened 
color, breathing rapidly from her late exertions. 

“ It is about this time in the afternoon,” said Crozier, “ that 
pensiveness comes upon us.” 

Then he recollected his cigar, and glanced over his shoulder to 
see where he could throw it. 

“ If you throw it away I shall go,” said Elma, “ and I want to 
sit here, so please be reasonable.” 

He inclined his head by way of thanking her, and continued 
smoking. 

“I am always reasonable,” he said, with slow humor, “and by 
seeking to combine close attention to the interests of the nobility 
and gentry with prompt execution of orders, S. C. hopes to receive 
continued patronage.” 

“ If S. C. would kindly be serious for a few minutes I should 
be much obliged.” 

“Zum befehl,” he murmured, turning towards her. “What 
riddle are you about to propound ?” 

“ First,” she replied, with a little imperious smile, “ I want to 
know if you hurt yourself just now.” 

“ Not at all, thank you ; it was only a shake. I am getting 
rather old to roll about, and — and as I observed before, a cer- 
tain pensiveness comes over man and beast at this time in the 
afternoon.” 

In completion of his meaning he slightly raised his cigar and 
glanced at it. 

“Quite sure?” she asked, with her pretty head poised sidewise. 

“ Quite,” he answered, carelessly, almost rudely, in face of her 
evident sympathy. “ Has Tom told you all about the book ?” he 
added at once, with the obvious intention of changing the subject. 


PLAYMATES. 


4d 


“ I think so,” she replied, looking across the ice towards her 
cousin ; “ but I have no doubt that you can tell me more.” 

“ Yes!” 

“Tom’s account of it was, to say the least, sketchy. Most 
of his statements are sketchy, I think. Is it really going to be a 
success, Mr. Crozier? I mean enough of a success to justify his 
giving up medicine and taking to art.” 

“ I think so,” he said, quietly, with no hesitation, no mock 
modesty. 

“ And,” she added, with a business-like little turn of the head, 
“ will the sale be large ?” 

He smiled involuntarily at her evident delight in her own show 
of commercial shrewdness. 

“Yes,” he said, “I think it will be large. In fact, by the 
arrangement which has been made with the publisher it should 
bring him in a small income for some years. The publisher has 
been very generous.” 

“ I did not know that Tom was such a good man of business.” 

She had turned a little and was looking directly at him. 

“No,” he answered, rather consciously. “He is very far- 
sighted, I think, though he is pleased to conceal the fact.” 

“ Who made the arrangement ?” she asked, with a momentary 
gleam beneath her demurely lowered lashes. 

“The arrangement — oh — er — I made the arrangement.” 

He drew in his feet and stooped to examine the fastenings of 
his skates with a critical eye. 

She laughed a clear, rippling little laugh, and leaned back, 
dangling her feet with girlish enjoyment of her small triumph. 

“ You are very good to Tom,” she said, with sudden gravity ; 
“ an invaluable friend.” 

“The obligation is no more on one side than on the other,” 
he replied. “ * We halve our griefs, and double our joys.’ ” 

She recognized the ring of a quotation in the low tones of his 
voice, and asked, 

“ Who said that ?” 

“ Somebody defined friendship in that way — Lord Bacon, I be- 
lieve.” 

For some moments they sat in silence, listening to the long, 
continuous ring of the ice beneath the bright -blades. It was a 
still evening, such as often comes in February. The pine-trees 
4 


50 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


all round them, like voiceless sentinels, seemed to watch and wait. 
All the western sky was ruddy with a dismal, cold glow, not yet 
speaking of spring. But the two sitting there did not seem to 
feel the cold, and they watched the skaters with superficial in- 
terest. At last she moved a little. 

“ I wish I could remember things like that,” she said ; “lam 
afraid I forget everything that I read or hear.” 

“ Um — ” he murmured, and smoked harder. 

“ You seem to have read a great deal,” she continued. 

He had thrown away his cigar and was leaning forward with 
his elbows resting on his knees, and his strong brown hands 
clasped restfully. He turned towards her without actually look- 
ing into her face. 

“ You see,” he explained, in a practical way, “ sailors have 
plenty of time on their hands in fine weather, and — and I suppose, 
taking it all in all, there is more fine weather to be met with than 
bad. When I was a sailor I read a good deal.” 

She did not answer at once. It almost seemed as if she had 
caught a little of his indolent pensiveness and indifference. 

“ I always understood,” she said, in a slow way, which dispensed 
with the necessity of a direct answer, “that sailors never quite 
settle down on land.” 

“ No — no ; perhaps you are right.” 

“You are still fond of the sea?” she said, with soft interroga- 
tion. 

“ Yes. Some day, when I am a rich man (through the exer- 
tions of some one else, of course), I shall keep a yacht.” 

He looked thoughtfully over the still trees towards the southern 
heavens, where huge clouds hung lazily, with softly rounded edges 
and a wondrous look of “ distance ” about them. She concluded 
that he was thinking of his beloved sea, but in that she was wrong. 
The past occupied no place in his mind. 

“ And yet,” she said, tentatively, with a woman’s quick sympa- 
thy, “ you left it by your own free-will.” 

He shook his head slowly and sat back in the seat. 

“ Not quite,” he replied, with a smile. “ It was a case of mis- 
taken duty — of giving way to an oversensitive conscience. I do 
not err in that way now. When my father died my mother com- 
pletely broke down. I was on the China station then, and I 
thought it my duty to come home, even if I had to give up the 


playmates. 


51 


sea in order to do it. When I reached England she had been 
buried three weeks.” 

He spoke quite unemotionally, and there was almost a specu- 
lative feeling in his voice as if he were relating an incident in the 
life of some one else, wondering over the possible effect in a semi- 
interested way. 

At this moment William Holdsworth passed before them. 

“Tired?” he said, with respectful familiarity to Elma, and 
glided away with a meaning smile before she had time to reply. 

“I sometimes think,” she said, presently, in a lower voice, 
“that Willy Holdsworth should have been a sailor. There is 
something about the way in which he holds himself, and the 
movements of his hands, that reminds me of — of you, and of 
other naval men.” 

Without turning his head he glanced at her face. She was 
watching Holdsworth with a little interested smile. 

“ What is he?” he asked, indifferently. 

“ Nothing at present,” was the reply. “ He came home from 
abroad somewhere three months ago. Since that he has lived 
with his parents. Their house is about five miles away. They 
are very, very old, and I have been told that he is a devoted son 
now.” 

Sam Crozier made no answer to this, and soon he rose, holding 
out his hand. 

“Come,” he said, “let us skate. You will catch cold if you 
sit here too long in the twilight.” 

Presently he handed her over to the care of Tom Valliant, and 
continued to sweep about in long sure curves by himself. He 
seemed to love solitude for its own sake. Certain it is that he 
preferred his own society to that of Holdsworth, Varden, or even 
the lively Miss Gibb. Now that he had brought Tom and Elma 
together, he was quite content to spend the last hour of their 
day’s pleasure alone — whirling, skimming, gliding from side to 
side, from end to end of the long sheet of ice. 

His strong, gentle face was restful as it always was, his deep-set 
eyes contemplative and very soft in their earnestness. In short, 
the man was strong, with that great, deep, enduring strength 
which is independent of human sympathies. Few men of this 
stamp pass through their allotted years without doing some good, 
lightening some burdens, and holding up some stumblers. They 


52 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


are seldom beloved by the many, for the many know them not ; 
but the lives around them, if not brighter, are surer in their 
brightness and braver in their shadows for the unconscious influ- 
ence wielded by strength over great and small. 


CHAPTER VII. 
crozier’s lie. 

Mrs. Valliant had scruples about asking Crozier to sing more 
than one or two songs. She felt, perhaps, that it was a species 
of charity for which she was suing ; attempting to get for noth- 
ing, as it were, a commodity for which money was demanded. 
But Elma was not held back by such doubts as these, estimable 
and admirable as they certainly were. After dinner that evening 
she seated herself airily at the piano, and swung round upon the 
revolving music-stool towards Crozier with her hands clasped 
upon her lap. 

“Now,” she said, imperiously, “how many songs have you 
brought ?” 

“ Two or three,” was the reply. 

“ My dear Elma,” murmured Mrs. Valliant, reproachfully, “how 
can you be so high-handed? Just when Tomkins was bringing 
in the coffee, too. What will the servants think of you ?” 

Tom winked at Crozier over his coffee-cup and promptly went 
to his cousin’s assistance. 

“ Ah, Aunt Minnie, you see Elma knows how to treat Sam. If 
she asked him prettily to oblige us with a song, he would hum 
and ha, and wait to be pressed. I know the man. That is the 
way to overcome him. Push him ; don’t try to draw him with 
silken cords.” 

He laughed his quick, infectious laugh, and stepped forward 
respectfully to take Mrs. Valliant’s empty coffee-cup. Then he 
crossed the room and took possession of a low chair near the 
piano. There he leaned back and gave himself over to the enjoy- 
ment of the music. His quick sensitive nature was easily touched 
by outward influences, and Crozier’s singing was always an unal- 
loyed pleasure to him. 


CROZIER’S LIE. 


53 


From his position at the side of the piano he was closer to 
Elma than Crozier, who stood behind her, and her dress thrown 
carelessly aside fell over his extended feet. He leaned back and 
unconsciously watched his cousin, noting the play of her deft fin- 
gers, and the little frown that came over her face at the difficult 
passages. Once or twice when the song was well known to her, 
she forgot her anxiety about the accompaniment, and followed 
dreamily with her lightly mobile head the rise and fall of the 
splendid voice. 

All this Tom Yalliant noticed as he lay softly smiling, and 
there was something else that impressed itself upon his mem- 
ory. This was, that Sam Crozier never looked down at the fair 
girl who was playing for him. His eyes kept strictly to the mu- 
sic-book, although he stood so far back that he could not pos- 
sibly have read the words. When she turned round to him to ask 
some question with reference to the accompaniment, or to de- 
mand his aid in the selection of the next song, he looked past 
her towards the book in a business-like, almost professional way, 
which was not quite natural. 

After singing for some time he asked her to play, and she did 
so on condition, laughingly made, that it was only in order to 
allow him a rest. When she began he had been standing behind 
her, and at last she finished with a decisive little flourish, and 
swung round. But it was only to find that he had noiselessly 
crossed the room, and was sitting beside her father and mother 
near the fire. Somehow she had expected him to remain stand- 
ing near to the piano, and the incident struck her at the moment 
and remained in her memory. 

“ Thank you,” said Crozier, looking up for a moment from a 
book which lay open before him. 

Then she turned towards her cousin, who was sitting near her, 
leaning forward in order to thank her. 

“Tom,” she said, in a voice which, without being purposely 
lowered, must have been inaudible at the far end of the room, 
“can you not stay over Monday?” 

He leaned farther forward, and for a moment his eyes were 
quite grave. 

“ I ?” he inquired, touching his breast with one finger. 

With her lips she formed the single word “ Do !” — not speak- 
ing it, but expressing it with a coquettish little pout. 


54 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“I?” he whispered again, “or both?” And with his eyes he 
indicated Crozier. 

She shrugged her shoulders, and played a few chords care- 
lessly. 

“ As you like,” she replied ; “ and as he likes.” 

Tom Yalliant leaned back in his low seat again and crossed 
his legs. His cousin began playing again, a light German air 
much in vogue just at that time, and he rubbed his slim hands 
slowly one over the other, as he looked vaguely across the room 
towards Crozier. Presently he roused himself. 

“ Oh, nightingale,” he exclaimed, dramatically, “ come and 
warble. We have not had the new song yet.” 

The singer obeyed, and sang two songs. Then he said that 
they had had enough, and closed the book in his lazily, decisive 
way. 

“I have been trying,” said Elma, in a low voice, as she turned 
half aside towards Crozier, “ to persuade Tom to stay over Mon- 
day. The frost is going to hold good and the skating will be 
worth staying for.” 

“ Both of us, of course ?” put in Tom, with a short laugh. 

Crozier took no notice of this. He was arranging the music 
on the piano, and he looked down at her with his blue eyes, 
softened by a smile. 

“ Do not persuade,” he said. “ Make him do it.” 

“ Can I ?” she inquired, saucily. 

“ Of course you can,” replied he, looking towards Tom, who, 
however, did not meet his glance. “ There is absolutely nothing 
to take him to town, and the matter of his brilliant future can 
be discussed in the family circle till it is worn threadbare.” 

Yalliant drew in his feet, and rose suddenly with the evident 
intention of crossing the room towards the fireplace. 

“ Phantom future, my boy, phantom future,” he exclaimed, in 
tragic tones. “ Not brilliant future. If you stay, I will ; not 
otherwise.” 

“ I do not believe that he wants to stay,” said Elma, play- 
fully. 

Valliant moved away, but Crozier raised his arm and detained 
him. 

“ My dear Tom,” he said, “ I cannot stay. I wish I could, 
but I have an engagement on Monday night.” 


CROZIER’S LIE. 


55 


“ Break it,” suggested Elma. 

Crozier shook his head. 

Valliant looked down at his cousin gravely. She was sitting 
before them on the music-stool, in her favorite, half-girlish atti- 
tude, with her hands folded upon her lap. She swung from side 
to side in a jerky way, making the stool revolve. 

“ Sam never breaks an engagement,” he said, steadily. 

She laughed merrily, not without a suggestion of mischief. 

“ Oh no,” she said, “ of course not.” 

“ The worst of it is,” put in Crozier, “ that there is no senti- 
mental consolation to be got out of it on this occasion. It is 
not a charity concert, so I cannot claim sympathy. As there is 
money to be considered in the question, Miss Yalliant, you will 
understand that I must go.” 

“ Well,” she replied, gayly, “ Tom must stay at all events.” 
She rose and passed across the room with her cousin. 

Crozier, who did not follow them, at once noticed that she 
expressed no regret that he should be obliged to go, and yet 
some expression of this sort was the least that he might have 
expected. He closed the piano and stood for some moments 
contemplating the little group round the fireplace. Tom was 
talking gayly in his usual chaffing style, and the singer saw that 
his friend’s merry dark eyes followed his cousin’s every move- 
ment and every glance with a persistence that was almost furtive 
at times. 

“ A week,” meditated the watcher, as he brushed aside his 
brown mustache with a quick backward movement of the finger. 
“ A week together would do it — but — but why does he keep 
constantly harping on that old joke about the phantom future? 
I wish I had never sung the song.” 

Then he crossed the room and joined in the discussion which 
was going on relative to the book of “Poetical Works,” illus- 
trated by Tom Yalliant. 

Later in the evening, as the young people stood together in the 
long broad passage that ran the whole length of the house, light- 
ing their bedroom candles, Elma again returned to the question. 

“ Tom,” she said, with a little imperious nod, “ you are going 
to stay over Monday.” 

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed as he swung lightly 
round on his heel to face her. 


56 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ I should like to,” he said, “ and I suppose I shall because 
Sam says I must. I generally do what he wants me to, sooner 
or later; n’est-ce-pas, Samuel.” 

Crozier smiled. He was busy straightening the wick of his 
candle with a match, and the flame flickered, casting its search- 
ing light upward upon his powerful head and face, which would 
have been unpleasantly resolute had it not been for the lazy pen- 
siveness of the deep-set eyes. 

“ Invariably,” he answered, “ when your own wish tallies with 
mine.” 

“And you,” said Elma, turning to him, “will come back on 
Tuesday morning for some more skating, as mother suggested.” 

“ Thank you,” he said, gravely, “ if I can manage it.” 

She moved away a little and glanced quickly into his face. He 
was still interested in the wick of the candle. 

“ I have,” said Tom, lightly touching his shirt-front, “ an ach- 
ing conviction just here that he will not turn up on Tuesday 
morning.” 

Elma laughed merrily and looked at Crozier. She had moved 
away as if to go to her room, but she stood still again a few yards 
from them. 

“ I have my doubts,” she said, mischievously. 

“ Miss Valliant,” said the singer, with quizzical reproach, “you 
tacitly admitted just now that I was not the sort of man to break 
his engagements. Remember that the man who keeps an engage- 
ment for money may be expected to keep one for pleasure. If 
I were you I should not count upon my failing to turn up on 
Tuesday.” 

“ I shall take care not to do so,” she said, laughingly, as she 
went up-stairs. 

Nevertheless, she knew as well as if he had told her that Sam- 
uel Crozier had no intention then of coming back to Goldheath. 
She also knew that with a man of his stamp intentions once con- 
ceived are usually carried out. Some of us may consider it a 
mistake, this unswerving adherence to a preconceived plan. 
Doubtless it leads to sorrow, but what does not ultimately trend 
downward to that same goal ? If a mistake be made, is it not 
better to stand by it — to steer the straightest course possible un- 
der the circumstances, and press bravely forward through the 
broken water to the smooth depths which (we are asked to be- 


CROZIER’S LIE. 


57 


lieve) exist beyond ? A good pilot does not “ down-helm ” and 
put the ship about on nearing the rocks. It is wiser to hold on 
the same tack and find a way through. Better come to grief in 
advancing than in retreating. 

Tom Yalliant accompanied his friend to his bedroom, but he 
did not stay long. • Crozier was tired and unresponsive ; he sank 
into a low chair before the fire and stretched out his legs with a 
groan of comfort, answering Tom’s remarks by monosyllables. 
At last the younger man left the room with a cheery “good- 
night.” Then the singer rose from his seat and stood with his 
hands in his pockets and his feet slightly apart on the hearth- 
rug. He was not a clever man, this musician, not very brilliant, 
not too intellectual ; but he was steadfast, very steadfast, and as 
true as steel. In the course of a wandering life he had seen many 
things that had puzzled him — strange unsatisfactory men and in- 
comprehensible women. He had moved in many grades of socie- 
ty. Among men — from the gun-room to Myra’s. Among mu- 
sicians — from Chatham Music Hall to St. James’s. Among 
women — from Syra, and lower than Syra, to his aristocratic 
mother. In all circles and under all circumstances he had expe- 
rienced no difficulty in steering his own course, guided by that 
subtle sense of refinement which is the true instinct of gentle- 
manliness. Through everything he had (as he jocosely informed 
Syra one night) endeavored to remember that he was a gentle- 
man, and in view of that remembrance he had this evening con- 
sidered it expedient to act and practically tell a lie in a lady’s 
drawing-room to a lady’s face, looking into her eyes with his, in- 
nocently and calmly. He knew he had done it well. He had 
even led up to the invitation to return to Goldheath before ac- 
cepting it with as much eagerness as he ever displayed in any- 
thing. Elma had expressed her complete satisfaction with the 
arrangement, her father had added a few hearty words of wel- 
come, and Tom had been merrily appeased. Crozier, however, 
never had the intention of returning, and now he was puzzling 
himself as to how Tom and Elma had found this out. Concern- 
ing the former, he did noi trouble himself much. Tom Valliant 
had an irresponsible way of saying, at hap-hazard, things he did 
not mean, and his friends soon learned to set small store by such 
remarks. His statements — as Elma observed — were often sketchy. 
But with Elma herself it was a different matter. There were 


58 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


many reasons why the singer did not wish her to think that he 
was desirous of avoiding a longer visit to Goldheath, so many 
that he did not attempt to define them. And he knew — he had 
read in her eyes as she looked back over her shoulder with one 
foot on the stairs — that she was fully aware of his intention. 

He stood for some time before the fire, and arrived no nearer 
to a solution; then he began to think of going to bed. It was 
strange how wakeful he now appeared to be. From the button- 
hole of his dress-coat he proceeded to unpin a flower in the me- 
chanical manner with which some men wind their watches at the 
mere mention of bed. It was a single spray of lily of the valley, 
which Elma had given him before dinner, presenting one to her 
cousin at the same time. He raised it to his face and critically 
inhaled the odor. 

“ Dead !” he muttered, and deliberately threw it into the fire, 
where it writhed and crackled ; then he turned away peaceably, 
humming an operatic air. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

RESURRECTION PIE. 

The next afternoon brought with it Holdsworth and Varden, 
who arrived about three o’clock with their skates, having walked 
the .distance. It happened that they came rather mal a propos. 
Some snow had fallen in the night, and in view of his wife’s con- 
sideration of her servants’ feelings, the squire had deemed it pru- 
dent to refrain from proposing that the pond be swept. Elma 
did not want to skate, because forsooth she had too fine a dress, 
and was too indolent to change it. Tom had his suspicions that 
she was aware of its becoming her exceedingly well, and therefore 
preferred to continue wearing it, and this opinion he audaciously 
aired. 

It was settled, however, that there was to be no skating, a walk 
being substituted, and a few moments later the two men arrived. 

“Oh, hang!” said Tom, aloud, when he saw them pass the 
window. 

“ Confound that fellow Holdsworth !” thought Crozier. 


RESURRECTION PIE. 


59 


The two new arrivals expressed themselves delighted at the 
notion of a walk. They were not at all tired, and would as soon 
walk as skate. 

On leaving the house, Holdsworth made a gallant attempt to 
get to Elma’s side, but failed. Tom Yalliant was before him, 
and Crozier’s quiet eyes were fixed on his face with a significant 
persistence, which said only too plainly that if he succeeded he 
would not be left in undisputed possession. The quiet gaze of 
those eyes haunted Holdsworth as he walked on by the side of 
Squire Yalliant. He knew that the singer had something to say 
to him, something unpleasant and probably true ; he felt that 
sooner or later in the afternoon he would get him alone, and say 
it in that gentle undeniable way which was so hard to meet, and 
he recognized when too late that he had made a mistake in com- 
ing to Goldheath again. 

Nevertheless, William Holdsworth laughed and chatted gayly 
with the genial old squire. He was a courageous fellow in his 
reckless, jaunty way, and he knew it, which made him over-confi- 
dent. 

Crozier had something to say to the returned ne’er-do-weel, 
and he succeeded, in his deliberate way, in walking with him 
alone at last, although it was not until they had turned home- 
ward again. He came to the point at once. 

“ Holdsworth,” he sai(d, “ this sort of thing won’t do !” 

“ What sort of thing ?” 

“ I should recommend you not to come to Goldheath quite so 
often.” 

Holdsworth’s quick eyes flashed round towards his companion. 
He touched the turf lightly with his stick several times. 

“ This is not the quarter-deck,” he remarked, insolently. 

“No,” murmured the singer, gently. He threw a significance 
into the monosyllable, which made his companion bite his lip in 
vexation. 

“ Why should I not come to Goldheath ?” was the sullen re- 
joinder. 

“ Because,” said Crozier, “ you are doing no good here.” 

“ What business is it of yours?” 

“None.” 

Holdsworth felt that he was getting no further on. It would 
be worse than folly to lose his temper with Crozier, who was 


60 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


never ruffled, and he felt that he was verging on to a display of 
heat. 

“ The men used to say,” he muttered, “ that you were a gen- 
tleman. Is it a gentlemanly thing to bully a man when he is 
down ?” 

“ Look here,” said Crozier, with an uncomfortable ring of anger 
in his voice. “ Look here, Holdsworth. If you think that I am 
going to stand by with my hands in my pockets, and watch you 
make love to Miss Valliant, you are greatly mistaken.” 

They walked on in silence for some distance. Holdsworth 
edged away from his companion a yard or so as if to think in 
solitude. Then he went closer to him so that their arms touched. 

“ I have never quite understood,” he said softly, “ why you 
should have troubled with me at all. You were the only man on 
board who had a good word for me, the only fellow I have met 
in the whole of my useless career who held' out a hand to help 
me. I suppose it’s no good telling you that I did try. I tried, 
sir, to keep straight, not for my own sake, but for yours, to 
show you that I was not quite a blackguard. But it was useless ; 
I went wrong again. Either I’m the unluckiest chap that has 
ever lived, or I’m a blackguard. I used to think, Crozier, that I 
was one, with no hope of ever being anything else. Then one 
day I came home. I found it was not so hard to keep straight 
after all. The pld folks were very good to me — very glad to see 
me. That was the beginning. Then I went to Goldheath one 
day and saw Elma — that was the end.” 

They had come to a stile, over which Crozier vaulted, but his 
companion made no attempt to follow him, and they stood lean- 
ing on the topmost bar, one on each side. 

“ You never were the fellow to leave a thing half done,” plead- 
ed Holdsworth. “You have given me more chances than any 
man on earth, give me this one more. Let me try. I think she 
cares for me.” 

Crozier actually smiled — the last remark was so absurdly char- 
acteristic of the man. The singer had pulled a little branch of 
blackthorn from the hedge, and was biting it pensively. 

“ You forget,” he said, ironically, “ that I knew you out there.” 

Holdsworth looked at him. 

“ You mean — that other girl,” he whispered, hoarsely. 

“ I mean that other girl,” affirmed the singer. There was a pe- 


RESURRECTION PIE. 


61 


culiar embarrassment about his manner of speaking which. Holds- 
worth did not understand until later. 

“ She is dead,” said Holdsworth, in a softer tone. 

Crozier lifted his head suddenly, as a man lifts his head upon 
hearing a distant, uncertain sound which he cannot explain. Still 
holding the little twig of blackthorn between his short strong 
teeth, he turned and looked into his companion’s eyes. 

“ That is a lie !” he said, almost exultingly. 

Holdsworth promptly made himself safe. 

“ To the best of my knowledge she is dead.” 

“ She is alive,” said Crozier, moving a little, and crossing his 
feet in order to lean more comfortably against the stile. 

“ Where is she ?” 

“ I am too kindly disposed towards her to tell you that,” said 
the singer. 

“ By ■, Crozier, you’re a hard man !” exclaimed Holds- 

worth. 

Before replying the other turned and looked speculatively at 
him. 

“ Perhaps I am,” he said, in a softer manner. “ Perhaps I am, 
but you have done it. You have shaken my faith in human nat- 
ure more than anything or any person I have met with.” 

Holdsworth turned away and looked across the level meadows 
.where the snow lay white. His companion stood in a square, 
immovable way, with his shoulders against the polished bar of 
the stile. He brushed aside his mustache with that peculiar back- 
ward movement of the fingers which was the only quick thing 
about him : coming at times in strange contrast as a suggestion 
of powers quiescent. 

“ I suppose,” said Holdsworth, “ that it is hard for you to real- 
ize the position of a fellow who has fought against bad-luck from 
the very beginning. Hitherto I have had nothing to save me, 
nothing to urge me on to better things. With you it is different.” 

“ What have I ?” interrupted the singer. 

“You? Why, you have your voice.” 

“Yes,” returned Crozier, slowly, without any suggestion of 
vanity, speaking as if the possession were something that he had 
found at the road-side. “ Yes, that is true. I have my voice.” 

“ And now,” continued the other, “ now that I have a real 
chance, surely you will let me try and hold it.” 


62 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ You forget the other girl !” 

“ I believe she is dead.” 

“ I know for a positive fact that she is alive.” 

“ Then,” exclaimed Holdsworth, “ tell me her address.” 

“ What good would it do her? What good would it do you?” 

“ Well,” began Holdsworth, with the hesitation of a man who 
is not telling the strict truth, “of course I owe her some repara- 
tion. I could at least see that she is not suffering from want.” 

“ Oh, that is all right,” said Crozier, unguardedly. 

Holdsworth looked at him sharply. 

“ Indeed,” he said, slowly clasping his hand round his weak 
chin, half hidden by a fair beard of apparently recent growth, 
“ you seem to know a good deal about it.” 

The singer made no reply. He moved his legs slightly, and 
taking a case from his pocket, selected a cigarette from it which 
he lighted, while his companion watched every movement with a 
puzzled expression. 

“How is it all right?” he continued. “Does she make her 
own living or, or — is it charity ?” 

Crozier shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his companion’s 
face through a cloud of smoke. 

“ I suppose you would call it charity.” 

“ Charity,” muttered the other, jealously, “ whose charity ?” 

The singer smoked in silence, looking straight in front of him 
with contracted eyebrows. He would not answer the question, 
but Holdsworth knew now. 

“ I don’t understand you, Crozier,” he said, unsteadily. Then 
suddenly jealousy — that strange, unhealthy jealousy which incon- 
stant men suffer on hearing or suspecting that another has taken 
up what they have left — came into his heart. 

“ Charity,” he insinuated, with horrible significance — “ charity 
from a young man to a devilish pretty girl. People might mis- 
construe it.” 

“ That is my business !” 

Crozier moved away, and his companion vaulted over the stile 
and followed him. 

“ Crozier,” he hissed, “ give me her address.” 

“ Why ?” 

“ Hang it, man, I love her still.” 

Crozier walked on rapidly. He heaved a weary sigh. 


RESURRECTION PIE. 


6 » 

“ You have a large heart,” he said, with biting sarcasm. 

“ I thought she was dead,” pleaded the other. “ I did, indeed.” 

“ And so turned to the living ?” 

“ I suppose so.” 

Crozier laughed unpleasantly, and made no further comment. 

“ I believe,” said Holdsworth, presently, “ that you love Elma 
Valliant yourself.” 

The singer turned and looked at him gravely. His cigarette 
was almost finished. He drew one long inhalation and threw the 
burning end into the snow, where it fizzled faintly. Then he 
emitted the smoke pensively in a thin, spiral column. 

“ You are at perfect liberty,” he said, quietly, and without any 
suggestion of embarrassment, “ to believe anything you like. It 
will not affect me. For the sake of convenience we will say that 
I want Elma Valliant for myself, and consequently if I catch you 
endeavoring to take the wind out of my sails I will make things 
uncommonly hot. And now let us drop the subject.” 

They walked home in silence. It was not that there was only 
the choice of speaking of the past or keeping silence. They 
could have conversed pleasantly enough upon indifferent topics if 
they had so wished, or if it had been necessary owing to the pres- 
ence of others ; but both were occupied with their own thoughts, 
and they knew each other well enough to find silence devoid of 
embarrassment. 

Samuel Crozier was by no means a domineering man. He 
found nothing but displeasure and disgust in the position in 
which he was placed. Some men there are who take delight in 
the mere sense of a commanding position ; to possess power over 
their fellows, to dictate the coming and going of others, is in it- 
self a distinct satisfaction. These men were undoubtedly bullies 
at school. But the ex-sailor was not of this class, and even while 
accusing him of it, Holdsworth knew that he was no bully. Nev- 
ertheless, there was in the man the instinct of exacting obedience 
which, like the art of making music or writing books, crops up in 
unexpected quarters where it is frequently allowed to run to waste. 
Frail women often have it, while some big men cannot acquire it 
even when conscious of the failing. Perhaps this instinct had 
been fostered greatly by the fact that Crozier had, when quite a 
boy, found himself in a position of command over men old enough 
to be his father — perhaps it was merely a part of his nature. Be 


04 


The Phantom future. 


that how it may, he never doubted that Holdsworth must obey 
him, although their wills had clashed before, when the gold-lace 
on his own sleeve gave him a practically unlimited power over the 
unruly blue-jacket, which he hesitated to take advantage of. He 
had not lost sight of the fact that this man was under the ban of 
naval law. His term of service was not complete, and he was 
liable at any time to be arrested and punished by a lengthened 
service before the mast. This knowledge, however, Crozier never 
thought of using. He argued (wrongly perhaps) that be was no 
longer in her Majesty’s service, and that it was not his business to 
inform on runaways. 

Holdsworth, although coldly silent, was not sullen. He was 
too light-hearted, too sanguine, and too reckless to indulge in a 
display of temper lasting for any space of time. His sins of the 
past troubled him very little. Of the unfortunate woman whose 
existence- had been summarily recalled to his memory that after- 
noon, he thought lightly enough. With the self-deception which 
comes so easily to men of his stamp, he argued that she had had 
herself to blame. She had drawn him on, exercised her all-power- 
ful wiles and coquetries for the benefit of such a notably unfaith- 
ful lover as a sailor. Clearly her downfall was at her own door. 
With such and similar sophistries he dismissed the subject. Some 
day he would insist on repaying Crozier the money which he had 
spent in mistaken philanthropy. In the mean time he was in love 
with Elma Valliant — sweet Elma Valliant — and she — well — she 
most assuredly cared for him. She was no longer a mere chit of 
a girl despite her youthful ways. Within that slender bodice was 
a woman’s heart of which the secret was hidden with all a wom- 
an’s jealous care. It was whispered in the country-side that Elma 
Valliant had changed lately. She had been in a childish way a 
wicked little flirt and coquette, but now the primmest matron 
could find no fault in her conduct. Of course that meant that 
there was some one — Some one — written with a capital letter. It 
could not be Tom Valliant; he was her cousin, and had been 
brought up with her as a brother since his father’s early death and 
his mother’s hasty second marriage. There were a few young 
men in the neighborhood, but none of them good enough for 
Elma, none of them to be compared with himself — William Holds- 
worth. No, no ; he was undoubtedly that Some one, and Crozier 
might go to Davy Jones and take his moral lectures with him. 


RESURRECTION PIE. 


65 


When they reached home the others had been in some time, 
and Elma was assisting her mother to dispense tea. It was about 
this time that Walter Varden arrived at the humiliating conclusion 
that his personal importance was not being recognized with the 
sense of admiration and respect which was its due. He found 
that his opinion was rarely asked, and when vouchsafed it was 
sometimes ignored. Tom Valliant and his friend were undoubt- 
edly the honored guests. Tom’s sallies were laughed at, Crozier’s 
opinion was asked. Mr. Varden therefore bethought himself of 
the expedient of showing these country people that he was a man 
about town, a regular “ dog,” with a wicked side to his character. 
With this end in view he looked Mephistophelian, and asked 
Crozier in an audible aside, 

“ How was the fair Syra when you last saw her, eh ?” 

An unfortunate silence followed. Mrs. Valliant pricked her 
ears, and inwardly thanked a wise Providence that the butler was 
not in the room. 

Crozier stirred his tea and looked critically at Varden from the 
top of his sleek, malformed head to his gaitered feet. Then he 
answered him with deliberation, 

“ I believe she was enjoying her usual rude health.” 

Then, to Elma’s infinite relief, Tom Valliant came forward with 
his ready merriment. 

“ Now don’t — don't!' 1 he exclaimed, holding up a warning tea- 
spoon. “Please draw a veil over city vices. Syra, as it happens, 
is only a young person who attends to the inward requirements 
of St. Antony’s ; but still, let us draw a curtain over your wild 
career. Remember, Varden, that I am young; spare this youth- 
ful cheek ; and if you — you dog — have led Sam away on the 
downward slope, do not breathe such darksome hints to me !” 

The situation was saved. Crozier created a masterly diversion 
with a plate of bread and butter, and Varden wondered vaguely 
whether he had made a fool of himself. It was a pity, however, 
that Holdsworth happened to be present. 

5 


66 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE ACADEMY OF CHEERFULNESS. 

Will any enterprising person join with heart and hand and 
purse in setting up an Academy where the cultivation of cheer- 
fulness shall receive sole and special care ? It may be that those 
shadows which come with years are gathering round ; it may be 
that the eye of the present writer is dimmed a little by much 
study, much sorrow, and much gaslight, but it seems to me that 
cheerfulness is leaving us. Are we a grave generation, or are we 
oppressed by the speed at which we travel? An express train 
makes less noise than its slower companions. Is there much sorrow 
in a multitude of balls, routs, soirees, dinners, theatres, and tennis 
parties? Is there additional wisdom and consequently additional 
grief in the view of many faces, the clatter of many tongues? It 
would seem so. A ball-room was in by-gone times the scene of 
revelry and mirth ; now it is dimly lighted, the floor is more 
highly polished, the feet that tread it are no heavier, but they are 
more skilful, and the faces are graver. If you doubt this, go to 
a public ball in London. The music is louder than the laughter, 
the feet are lighter than the hearts. Smiles there are, of course 
— are they not the mask of society? — but of laughter there is 
none, except, perhaps, among the old maids and stout married 
men around the walls. 

In my Academy of Cheerfulness, however, the real genuine 
article shall be cultivated. At the head of it we will place an 
elderly unmarried lady — to be frank, an old maid — who has seen 
sorrow and waded in it since her girlhood ; whose lover was per- 
haps killed before his mustache was aught but fluff ; whose broth- 
ers are dead; who nursed her aged cross-grained mother when 
her own vitality revolted against the enervating warmth of a sick- 
room; who is called upon in times of sorrow as the sheep is 
called by its lamb when a dog is loose. She will not be brought 
into these pages, but I have her address by my side, and when 
the capital is fully subscribed I will write to her, and with pleas- 


THE ACADEMY OF CHEERFULNESS. 


67 


ure, for there is a vagne reflection of goodness in the very sight 
of her name. For patrons and directors we will have a middle- 
aged doctor who has stood, in a hundred sick-rooms by the bed- 
side where Death was hovering, alone unmoved amid the tear- 
ful watchers, and the brave young vicar who has knelt at the 
other side of that same bed. • To these we will leave the 
choice of professors, who must, however, be mostly gathered 
from the ranks of the unwed, and then we will order a brass 
door-plate. 

Had such an institution been in existence when Tom Yalliant 
was a St. Antony’s man it would have found in him an apt and 
ready pupil. Without it, however, he was studying more or less 
successfully by himself. I say more or less, because some people 
received his lightness of heart as a gift sent to him from whence 
all gifts are despatched, whereas a few scented as it were the art 
that made it sometimes almost artificial. Among these latter was 
his cousin Elma, and her suspicion was quite unformed and in- 
definite. But it was to her that he betrayed himself the oftenest. 
It was with her that his humors changed most frequently, and it 
was when talking to her that he sometimes avoided gravity too 
obviously. 

She wanted to talk to Samuel Crozier about this matter, and in 
walking home from church on Sunday evening the opportunity 
presented itself. Tom was in front with his uncle and aunt, and 
the squire’s hearty apoplectic laugh came back to them through 
the still night air at intervals. It was probably freezing very 
hard, but as the air was quite still, the cold was not unpleasant, 
and no one evinced a desire to walk quickly. 

“ I am sure Tom will send papa into a fit some day,” said 
Elma, after a little pause, during which an extra loud laugh had 
reached their ears. 

“ Yes ; he is a cheerful soul,” answered Crozier, gravely, for he 
knew that her humor just then was grave. The clear bright 
moonlight resting softly on the sleeping land was enough to 
make her a little pensive and quiet, especially after the solemn 
evening service. 

“ Is he always like that?” she asked. 

He looked down at her, his deep eyes contracted and almost 
searching. 

“ When he remembers,” he answered, divining her thoughts. 


68 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


She smiled a little, but did not look up, and they walked on 
without speaking for a few moments. 

“ And you,” she said, in a lighter tone, “ are you like that too 
when you are alone with him ?” 

“ No,” he answered, with a low laugh, “no ; there is a lamenta- 
ble monotony about me.” 

She did not smile. Her lips were slightly parted, and he saw 
the gleam of her short white teeth, but they were not parted in 
mirth. 

“What a strange friendship !” she murmured. “What a 
strange friendship it is ! I think it is rather interesting.” 

He set back his head and looked up to the heavens with the 
eye of an amateur astronomer. 

“ It is convenient,” he said, “ and very commonplace, I can as- 
sure you.” 

“Are you much together?” she asked. 

“ Oh yes. We see each other every day, and usually have at 
least one meal together.” 

“ At Syra’s ?” she asked, carelessly. 

“At Myra’s,” he corrected. “Syra is only Myra’s assistant.” 

“ Myra,” she said, “ is the motherly old lady who sees that the 
students do not get into mischief, is she not ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And Syra?” she inquired, peremptorily. 

“ Syra is young and charming,” he answered, lightly. “ All 
the students fall in love with her in turn.” 

“ Is she pretty and — and lady-like ?” asked Elma, drawing her 
fur boa closer round her throat. 

“Yes,” he answered, in the same careless, perfunctory way. 
“ Yes, she is both. She is rather interesting also.” 

“ Indeed !” 

By that single word she managed to shelve the subject most 
completely, and a sudden silence came over them. Then he re- 
turned to the question of Tom’s cheerfulness. 

“Why do you ask whether Tom is always cheerful?” he in- 
quired. 

She looked up towards him. He was looking straight in front 
of him, and did not appear to be aware of her scrutiny. The 
moon was nearly full, and its soft light detracted a little from the 
habitual sternness of his expression. The face she saw there 


THE ACADEMY OF CHEERFULNESS. 


69 


was merely that of a strong, thoughtful man, with perhaps a 
somewhat unusual curve of lip and chin, imparting a pleasant 
sense of steadfastness. 

“ It sometimes seems to me,” she said, frankly, “ that it is not 
quite natural. And yet there is surely no reason why he should 
assume it; there can be nothing on his mind — I mean, nothing 
that he wishes to hide from us.” 

He showed no surprise. In fact when he answered her his 
manner clearly betrayed that such thoughts had passed through 
his own mind also. His voice was gentler than usual, with a 
suggestion of mutual confidence in it, of which he was probably 
unaware. 

“ It may be the effect,” he said, “ of having concealed the af- 
fair of that book. Concealment leaves its mark upon men. I 
know a fellow who is now a celebrated novelist, but his own 
name is quite unknown. When he was young he lived a double 
life. In his family he was merely the second son — a Govern- 
ment clerk, with no great prospect of advancement. Under his 
assumed name he was one of the most prominent literary men of 
the day. Of course it was a mistake, an utter mistake ; but he 
began with the idea of suppressing his identity with the promis- 
ing writer until he was sure of his success, and then it was diffi- 
cult to tell the secret. It is all out now, for it happened years 
ago, but there is something unnatural and almost furtive about 
him still.” 

“Yes,” she answered, softly, “it may be that.” 

She was not thinking of the novelist whose thirst for personal 
fame had never been satisfied. The argument was ingenious. It 
might apply to Tom Yalliant, but she thought that it did not, if 
indeed she was giving attention to the argument at all. Probably 
she was thinking of the arguer, a way women have. Perhaps she 
was treating the little story merely as a glimpse of this man’s 
past life — this indifferent idler who only displayed energy when 
the effort was wrung from him — who deliberately chose to waste 
one of the greatest gifts vouchsafed to men. And she wondered 
indefinitely whether there was a motive in it all, whether there 
was some sad story hidden behind the glance of those grave eyes. 
Perhaps she pitied him a little, pitied his loneliness — that strange 
loneliness of a man living in London chambers — and regretted 
bis apparent aimlessness. It was only by little glimpses that he 


10 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


raised the curtain over his past existence, and Tom knew no 
more than she did. If directly questioned, the singer said that 
he had no past. He protested that his history was like the his- 
tory of a ship’s bell — the record of certain voyages made, certain 
climates endured, and certain dangers passed through. To the 
bell such details served to lend a fictitious interest, but the story 
was not part of its individuality, failing to affect its tone, neither 
increasing nor detracting from its value. 

“ I wish,” said Crozier, again returning to the subject, “ that 
Tom would really give up medicine decisively and take to art.” 

“ Do you think,” she said, indifferently, after a short pause, 
‘‘ that he would really make a name ?” 

“ He is more likely to do so as an artist than as a doctor; but 
he does not seem inclined to set his mind steadily upon one thing. 
He used not to be like that. It is a recent development in his 
character.” 

“ I have noticed it also,” said Elma ; “ and yet he is not what 
might be called superficial, like that Mr. Varden.” 

“ No ; he is not superficial.” 

“ I wonder what it is,” she murmured, forebodingly. 

He glanced down at her, brushed aside his mustache, thrust 
his hands into his coat-pockets, and looked straight in front of 
him. 

“ I think I know what it is.” 

“ Please tell me,” she begged. 

“ Evil influence,” he answered. 

“ Ah J” she exclaimed, as if $he had expected it. 

He laughed rather awkwardly. 

“Not the influence you mean,” he explained, hastily. “It is 
that of the men he associates with in town. We are apparently 
an idle lot ; we get up late, and we lounge the day away, but it 
is not really idleness. The explanation lies in the fact that we 
are mostly night-birds — journalists, actors, singers, and writers — 
our work begins when most people begin their leisure. Tom is 
a day-worker, and it is a bad thing for him to associate with 
night-workers. Do you understand ? When we are playing he 
should be at work, and the temptation is very strong to come and 
play with us. If he were to study art he would get into another 
set. They may be vain, affected, and shallow, but the life he will 
lead among them is a purer, healthier, more natural life than that 


THE ACADEMY OF CHEERFULNESS. 


71 


he leads with us. I am speaking physically as well as morally. 
From the latter point of view he is strong enough, but in body 
he is a little shaky, I think.” 

He spoke to her as if she were not a frivolous, light-hearted 
girl at all, without apologizing for his gravity, without attempting 
to suppress details, or make light of serious facts. And strange 
to say, she liked being treated thus; she preferred his gravity to 
the wit of other men. 

“And you think,” she said, “that it will be wise for him to 
leave St. Antony’s, if it is only in order to get away from your 
influence ?” 

He looked at her in a puzzled way, failing to understand 
whether the pronoun was intended in the singular or plural sense. 

“ Yes,” he answered, nevertheless, “ I do.” 

“ You think,” she continued, judicially, “that this influence is 
doing him harm ?” 

“ Yes,” he answered, wondering. 

“ Then,” she said, very gravely, “ I think you are quite wrong. 
I think you are doing a deliberate injustice to Tom and — and to 
yourself, Mr. Crozier. Your influence over him can be for noth- 
ing but good, and you must be purposely blinding yourself to the 
fact if you do not recognize it as I do.” 

He drew in a deep, unsteady breath through his parted lips, 
and she heard it distinctly as they walked along the sandy road. 
Then he laughed suddenly in a deprecating, apologetic way, and 
said : 

“ It is very good of you to say so, but I am afraid you are too 
charitable. Yalliant requires something very different from my 
society. He wants stimulating and encouraging — urging on in- 
stead of holding back. Some one younger and brighter, more 
imaginative perhaps, and — and less experienced.” 

“ In fact,” she exclaimed, with a merry laugh, “ some one who 
is not so desperately old and cynical and sceptical as Samuel Cro- 
zier, Esquire.” 

“ That is so,” he assented, meekly. 

They were now very near to Goldheath Court, and the front 
door stood invitingly open, while a flood of warm light shone 
out upon the snow-clad earth and fairy-like trees, where the white 
frost nestled and gleamed daintily. 

“ Well,” she said, almost coldly, he thought, “ it has been the 


72 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


erroneous custom of us all at Goldheath to be thankful that Tom 
had you near him as a friend and adviser. Perhaps it would not 
be politic to dispel that illusion now — or to attempt to dispel it.” 

• Then she passed in front of him beneath the broad, hospitable 
porch, and he followed silently, with a singularly lifeless look in 
his close-set eyes. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE SCHOOL OF MELANCHOLY. 

It does not seem a necessity that melancholy should follow on 
the footsteps of solitude. But the state of loneliness has attend- 
ant mental conditions which might easily be mistaken for melan- 
choly, or degenerate into it. The great mental difference between 
men and women is merely a matter of comparative solitude. The 
most manly women are only daughters who have led compara- 
tively lonely lives, slept in a room by themselves, formed their 
characters with their own hands and without the influence of 
contemporary girls and women. The most womanly women 
(bless them !) are those who have had many brothers and sisters, 
who have known a nursery life, who have shared their sleeping- 
room with sister or sisters, who have always had a recipient at 
hand for thoughts that come at night when they are sleepy, and 
those that come in the morning when they are sleepier. They 
may not be so clever, these womanly ones — so well read, so deep- 
ly learned, so weighty in conversation, but again I say, “ Heaven 
bless them !” And you, my middle-aged brother, if you have 
married one of them, look across the table to where she is at 
work, lay aside this book, take that old pipe from your lips, and 
mutter a word of thanks for your good-fortune. “ Entre nous," 
it is probably more than you deserve. 

There is more solitude in the lives of most men than is gener- 
ally realized, and one of the most solitary beings on earth is the 
man who lives in chambers in London. In the very centre — at 
the hub of the wheel of life — he is alone. He goes to bed at 
night without saying even the words “ Good night,” because 
there is no one to say them to. There may indeed be a sweet 
and gentle photograph on the mantle-piece, but it is not our busi- 


THE SCHOOL OF . MELANCHOLY. 


73 


ness to inquire whether he salutes that or not. In the morning 
he rises, and passes from his bedroom to his sitting-room to start 
a new day, to take one more step upward or downward, without 
exchanging a salutation of any description, without the cheering 4 
sound of a human voice, though it be only raised to wish a per- 
functory good-morning. Now all this must assuredly leave its 
mark upon men. It fosters habitudes of silence and reserve ; in 
some cases it leads to brooding and discontent. 

Most men pass some portion of their lives alone thus, and 
carry the effect of it on with them. Many a fine sense of humor 
has thus died an unnatural death. We boast, my brethren, that 
the sense of humor is ours alone, that our sisters have it not, and 
yet in our intercourse with them are we the amusers or the 
amused ? 

On the Monday following the events just chronicled, Samuel 
Crozier returned to London and recommenced his solitary life. 
The clean pavement of Lime Court knew again his firm tread. 
The man who dwelt above him heard once more that low, mur- 
murous voice in the morning when he was dressing. The piano 
was opened again ; and again Mrs. Sanders had to put up with 
gentle irony. The good r lady had been suffering from “ indigest- 
ion crool,” which Crozier attributed to the fact that his whiskey- 
decanter had been locked away for three days. 

Tranquilly he returned to his old unsatisfactory ways. There 
were many letters awaiting his attention, and these he answered 
in a business-like manner, shortly and tersely, before dressing to 
dine at his club, and go on to the concert-room where he was to 
sing afterwards. 

He was in good voice that night, and as usual scored a decided 
success. His reception was such as would have turned the head 
of a less self-contained man. He, however, merely bowed his 
thanks, and looked with a quiet, emotionless smile upon the sea 
of upturned faces, before turning to give his accompanist the 
signal to begin. Then he stood in his square, sailor-like way, and 
sang his song without affectation, without emotion ; and, as he 
called a hansom afterwards, and drove off to a club with a brother- 
musician, he was supremely unconscious that the full, soft notes 
of his splendid voice had found something to say to more than 
one heart that night. 

On his late breakfast-table the next morning there were sev- 


74 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


eral letters, and as he took the top one up and threw it aside he 
suddenly stopped humming a popular tune — stopped abruptly in 
the middle of a bar. The superscription on the envelope was 
in a somewhat large hand, but firm and clear, while the words 
showed no tendency to run downhill at the end. 

“ From Elma !” he muttered, with unconscious familiarity. 
And then he walked to the window with the letter in his hand, 
while Mrs. Sanders’s culinary productions grew cold and tough. 

Before he opened the envelope he was humming again — a 
hymn this time. Although the letter occupied three sides of a 
sheet of paper, the perusal of it was a matter of a few seconds 
only. Then he refolded it, and placing it in the envelope, stood 
at the window, looking absently down into Lime Court, where a 
milkman was exchanging amorous chaff with a house-keeper’s 
daughter. Then he unfolded the letter and read it a second time. 

“Dear Sam, — Though a fairer hand than mine guides this 
halting pen, its effusions emanate from my brain alone. Put on 
your hat, and go round to St. Antony’s, then hurry on to Myra’s 
with the dread tidings that Thomas Valliant is laid low. Breathe 
into the ear of the concerned that he has broken the small bone 
of his leg (which is strictly true), ask th«i to shed a tear, and to 
keep their peckers up, as the poet hath it. The spirit of emula- 
tion was aroused in this breast yesterday by the superior skating 
of Mr. Holdsworth, and these legs getting mixed up, there was a 
crash and a small crack. The crash was my head which held, 
the crack was the small bone as aforesaid which went. It is a 
neat enough break, and has just been nicely fixed up by a local 
practitioner, who actually knows more about it than the patient. 
Ah, my boy, who wouldn’t have a broken leg? A comfortable 
sofa, a roaring fire, arft^ntidy library, and the sweetest little — ” 

Here the letter broke off suddenly, and below was written in 
another handwriting, 

“ Secretary struck work. 

“Yours, 

“Tom Valliant.” 

Elma, however, had managed to scribble a postscript on her 
own account. 

“ He has keen, and is still, in horrible pain, but keeps up his 


THE SCHOOL OF MELANCHOLY. 


75 


spirits — a little too high, perhaps, to be quite natural. You know 
how plucky he is. — E. V.” 

“ Yes,” said Crozier, aloud, “ I know how plucky he is. It is 
not so very difficult to be plucky, however, when one is winning 
the day.” 

He folded the letter, and turned to his lonely breakfast-table. 
Then he raised the cover of a dish critically, and sniffed the 
subtle odor of grilled kidney. 

“ I know,” he added, meditatively, being in after-thought, “ how 
lucky he is also.” 

Then he sat down and drew the morning paper towards him, 
humming an operatic air as he poured out the coffee. Towards 
the end of a remarkably good meal lie suddenly pushed his cup 
away and leaned back in his deep chair. It was a favorite atti- 
tude of his, this, combining comfort and the suggestion of an- 
other drop of coffee with his cigarette ; and he usually brushed 
aside his mustache with a hasty movement before stretching out 
his leg for greater facility in finding his match-box. He turned 
his head sidewise and gazed peacefully out of the dirty window 
at the chimney-pots of Number 5a, Lime Court, opposite. The 
result of his meditations was of a damnatory nature. 

“ Hang Hol.dsworth !” he said, gently. Then he lighted his 
cigarette and threw the extinguished match over his shoulder on 
the off chance of its falling into the fireplace behind him. As a 
matter of fact, it found a resting-place in one of his boots airing 
on the hearth-rug ; but the ways of bachelors are proverbially rep- 
rehensible, and he did not care. 

Before he had condescended to explain his reasons for con- 
demning Holdsworth to an ignominious death, there was a knock 
at the door, and a fair grave young man enured the room. 

“ Ah, Leonard !” said Crozier, rising ; “ glad to see you.” 

Dr. Leonard, house-surgeon at St. Antony’s Hospital, came for- 
ward with his small white hand extended. 

“How are you, Crozier?” he inquired. As he spoke he gazed 
into the stalwart singer’s face with rather mournful eyes, full of 
anxious question. There was clearly nothing the matter with Cro- 
zier; he was as strong and robust and healthy as men are created 
in these days, but Wilson Leonard was a young doctor and a con- 
scientious man, He was overwhelmed just then by the gravity 


16 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


of his profession. For him every man and woman was a possible 
patient. There were unsuspected diseases lurking in every limb, 
unthought-of germs in every breath. The whole world was for 
him a hot-bed of sickness, of bodily woe. His somewhat sensi- 
tive organization had been seriously affected by the long and 
painful training through which he had passed. He had never 
grown callous. Like many of us, he took human woes and hu- 
man weaknesses too seriously. At the hospital he was considered 
an alarmist and over-anxious. Not, be it understood, on his own 
account, for he never knew the fear of infection, which, like other 
cowardices, is unaccountable and in the blood. I have known a 
brave soldier turn pale at the thought of sea-sickness. I have 
seen a blockade-runner run away from a wasp. He had yet to 
learn that men fight for life as they never fought for anything 
else. He had yet to shake off a certain suspicion anent the 
power of his own knowledge, the weight of his own endeavors, 
and the infallibility of his tactics against the hosts of sickness. 
This was not a personal doubt, but a professional realization. 
Among other things, he had learned how very little doctors know ; 
how very much they have to guess, and what a great lot they 
leave to nature. Doubtless he has gained a greater confidence by 
this time, or has acquired the noble art of looking wise when 
sorely puzzled, which serves just as well with us others. At all 
events, he is high up in the professional tree now, and his com- 
ing into the house is as that of a good angel or a demi-god, so 
comforting, so hopeful, so full of relief is the sound of his foot- 
steps on the stairs. 

“ Sit down,” said Crozier, “ and have a cup of coffee. It is 
tepid still.” 

“ Thanks,” replied the doctor, absently looking at his watch. 

The singer noticed the action, and smiled in a barefaced and 
shameless manner. It was past ten o’clock. 

“ Here,” he said, “ take a cigarette, and never mind the time. 
I suppose you have been up hours, curing the diseased, healing the 
wounded, comforting the sick. Thank God I am pot a doctor.” 

Wilson Leonard rarely smiled, but he looked at the singer with 
a soft expression about the eyes which meant the same thing. 
Then he passed his bloodless hand up over his high, broad fore- 
head, where the hair was already very thin. 

“ I have been at it all night,” he said, sipiply, “ more or less,” 


THE SCHOOL OF MELANCHOLY. 

Crozier pushed the cigarette-case towards his visitor, and looked 
sympathetic. 

“ I came,” continued the young doctor, “ to ask you where 
Tom Yalliant is.” 

“ He’s in very comfortable quarters,” answered Crozier, looking 
into his empty cup as if he expected to find some interesting fish 
swimming there. 

“ Is he ill ?” asked Leonard, with a peculiar shortness of enun- 
ciation. His lips were slightly apart, and the smoke hovered 
about his face. Again he looked too anxious, too much as if it 
were his duty to sympathize with all the sorrow on earth. 

Crozier glanced involuntarily towards the envelope which lay 
on the table near his hand. The address was obviously written 
in a girlish hand, quite unlike Tom’s careless style. 

“ I had a letter from him this morning,” the singer said. “ He 
has broken the small bone in his leg — nothing much, he says ; 
but it will keep him on his back for a few days, I suppose ?” 

The doctor detected the interrogation. 

“That is nothing very serious,” he answered. “He will have 
to be careful for a short time, that is all.” 

In matters of surgery Dr. Wilson Leonard was confident enough, 
and a daring operator. 

“ He writes,” continued Crozier, “ that it has been seen to and 
that he is very comfortable.” 

The doctor rose and drank off his coffee. 

“ I am glad it is only a small break,” he said. “ I was afraid 
when he did not turn up this morning that there was something 
wrong.” 

The singer looked up into the young fellow’s grave face. His 
deep-set, earnest eyes were overshadowed. 

“Something wrong?” he repeated, interrogatively. “I don’t 
think that Tom will go to the dogs. He is a trifle wild — but — 
I suppose we have all been a little that way in our time. Oh no ! 
There is nothing wrong, Leonard !” 

The doctor had placed his hat upon his head — rather forward 
over the eyes, which suited his grave and refined style — but in- 
stead of leaving the room he went slowly to the fireplace, and 
stood there with one foot on the fender, gazing into the fire. 

“ I dare say,” he acquiesced, “ that he is right enough. He 
goes too much to Myra’s,” he added, after a momentary pause. 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


78 

“ Lives too restless a life. It is all very well for fellows like yon, 
Crozier ; thick-limbed fellows with a constitution like an ostrich, 
but it is a bad style of existence for men who are at all shaky. 
Besides, it’s a stupid, aimless waste of time. Of course they are 
clever fellows with whom he associates, but I do not see that any 
of them profit much by each other’s society, however pleasant it 
may be. I don’t want you to think that I am meddling, Sam. 
I suppose it is none of my business, beyond the fact that I am a 
St. Antony’s man. But I don’t want Tom to go wrong. None 
6f us would like that. He is the best man we have had there in 
my' time, and the nicest. Everybody is fond of Tom Valliant.” 

Crozier had turned his chair round. He was sitting forward, 
with his hands clasped round one knee. His features were slight- 
ly screwed up as he looked towards his companion, doubtless by 
reason of the smoke which curled up from his cigarette into his 
eyes. He ignored the personal hits contained in the doctor’s re- 
marks in a quiet, indolent way. Indeed, he seemed to have been 
listening carelessly, for he remembered only one little phrase. 

“ Is Tom shaky ?” he asked, without lowering his eyes. 

Wilson Leonard nodded his head gravely. Then he raised his 
right hand and touched the left side of his waistcoat significantly. 

“ Heart — I believe,” he said in a whisper. 

There was silence in the room for some time. The sparrows 
twittered and chattered in the lime-tree outside, and over the roofs 
came the deep tones of Westminster clock striking eleven. The 
doctor moved a little and held out his hand. 

“I must go,” he said. 

“ Tell me,” said Crozier, as he rose and opened the door for his 
friend to pass out — “tell me, do you think he suspects?” 

“ I do not know at all. One of the young uns told me. He 
found it oat when they were examining each other one day in fun.” 

Crozier usually practised after breakfast when he had smoked 
one cigarette, but he now lighted another soon after Dr. Leonard 
had left the room. He stood upon the hearth-rug facing the fire 
and smoked it right through. Even after he had thrown the end 
away, he stood there with his legs set slightly apart and his hands 
clasped behind his back, gazing into the fire with a peculiar, con- 
centrated expression upon his dogged face. 

“ Poor little woman !”- he murmured. “ Poor little woman !” 

Then he went to the piano. 


QUICKSAND. 


V9 


CHAPTER XI. 

QUICKSAND. 

In the mean time life at Goldheath was very pleasant. The 
frost vanished, and for a week it appeared as if March were to 
be missed out of Nature’s calendar that year. On the moors the 
yellow furze came peeping out among the brown heather and stiff 
pine-trees. In the hedge-rows green things began to push their 
way through the moist soil, and there was on all the earth a subtle 
odor of new verdure. 

After a short and sharp winter, spring was at hand. Spring ! 
Shall I describe it? No. The great transformation scene at 
Goldheath was very much upon the same lines as in other places. 
It is just possible that you have lived through more of them than 
I. If you have watched the process with loving eyes, if you have 
inhaled those wonderful scents of growing things and budding flow- 
ers, if you have stood still for even an hour and tried to enumer- 
ate the thousand petty details, the million wheels within wheels 
running smoothly, you know as much about it as I do. For you 
a few printed lines could contain nothing new. If, on the other 
hand, you have learned from the calendar that spring has come 
or will come next week, and have hailed its advent as a mere 
period connected with a thinner overcoat or a new bonnet — if 
spring tells you nothing more, I am dumb. Probably you have 
skipped two or three pages, and are a long way ahead of me 
among the open paragraphs and conversation farther on. 

Tom Yalliant’s broken bone progressed famously. Perhaps 
spring had something to say to it — something that knit it quickly 
and drew in the strained sinews again. After a week he limped 
about merrily enough. The doctor’s high dog-cart drew up no 
more before the broad door, and there was consequently a per- 
ceptible diminution in the daily consumption of sherry, as noted 
by Tomkins the butler. 

And while Tom limped about by Eltna’s side at Goldheath, his 
good name strode abroad in all England and across the seas. Not 


80 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


with halting gait, but strongly and speedily. In a week the sale 
of the new edition of the American singer’s songs gained a firm 
hold upon the public. Daily the ex-medical student received en- 
velopes addressed in Crozier’s smooth -running handwriting, of 
which the form and style never altered perceptibly from day to 
day. The man was steadfast even to his penmanship. These 
envelopes contained no letter, but printed matter only — cuttings 
from newspapers and periodicals. Praise, and only praise, tem- 
pered, of course, here and there by kindly advice. The work 
was good, and like all good work, it was recognized by its critics. 
For good work must come to the top, and critics are just, let 
cynics say what they like. The public has been invited ere now 
to inspect a collection of pictures rejected by a committee of 
painters and critics, and the result has invariably been a confirma- 
tion of the opinion given by experts. The public has rejected 
the pictures as well. A publisher’s ledger will be found to con- 
firm in a remarkable degree the literary critic’s review. 

Not only did Tom Valliant’s venture contain in itself the ele- 
ments of success, but its publisher knew that he had done a good 
stroke of business. Moreover (with all due respect to the pro- 
fession), he was watched and urged to further endeavors by a cer- 
tain singer who had much spare time upon his hands and an ex- 
ceptionally shrewd head upon his shoulders. 

So the sale went on apace, and the critics talked while the ob- 
ject of their surmises and praise grew graver day by day at Gold- 
heath. It was rather a remarkable incident, this gravity that 
came to Tom Valliant during his convalescence, for convalescence 
is in itself a happy time. Spring is also a happy time, for it is 
mostly anticipation, of which all human joy consisteth chiefly. 
Youth again is assuredly all brightness. Holding within his arms 
convalescence, spring-time, and youth, Tom’s face and manner ac- 
quired fresh gravity day by day. There was no sombreness in 
his demeanor, no pensiveness nor outward signs of mental woe ; 
but the power of turning everything to laughter seemed to be no 
longer at command. With Mrs. Valliant he was little changed. 
The audacity which was really full of tact and never impertinent 
was daringly displayed as of yore. The careless little attentions 
and signs of thoughtfulness never failed to please her cold, unen- 
thusiastic heart. Perhaps, indeed, she saw no difference in this 
merry nephew, who had forced his way into her heart by the 


QUICKSAND. 


81 


sheer contradiction of his ways and fearlessness of his demeanor 
in respect to herself. With the old squire Tom was hearty, and 
ready enough with the quick repartee which never failed to make 
him chuckle and gurgle, while he held his back with both hands 
just where the lumbago struck him when he remembered it. But 
with Elma his manner was different. He chaffed her still with a 
certain gleam of enjoyment in his dancing eyes; but on several 
occasions he allowed himself to be drawn into long and serious 
discussions upon abstract topics, such as thoughtful little maidens 
love. Life, treated speculatively, as we can afford to treat it from 
the threshold ; the past mentioned with laughter, awakening rec- 
ollections ; but the future was never discussed in this grave spirit. 
Elma was ready enough, but Tom became cynical and flippant at 
the mention of anything beyond the present. 

One day they talked of Samuel Crozier. Tom started the sub- 
ject. 

“ I know,” he said, “ what Sam is doing. He is worrying that 
unfortunate publisher into an untimely grave, in a gently persist- 
ent way, with a sweet smile. He is hammering away at all the 
critics and art-journalists — in fact, he is running the whole con- 
cern.” 

Elma looked up at her cousin over a plate which was fixed upon 
her easel. She said nothing just then, but dropped her two hands 
upon her paint-stained apron, and looked out into the Walled 
Garden. 

“I wonder why he does it?” she said, practically, after a pause; 
and without waiting for enlightenment she raised her palette, and 
began dabbing daintily thereon with a brush which showed signs 
of having been imperfectly washed upon several occasions. The 
paints used by Elma were of a peculiar nature. They somewhat 
resembled honey, insomuch as they were frequently to be found 
in small quantities in most impossible and unexpected quarters. 

“ I don’t exactly know,” answered Tom, reflectively. He was 
seated on a low chair, with his leg upon the end of the sofa, and 
in such a position that he could watch his cousin creating most 
delicate flowers with the dirty brush. “ I don’t exactly know ; I 
suppose he likes it.” 

“ That must be a comforting reflection,” said she, with a short 
laugh. 

“ It is, miss, a most comforting reflection. Because I know 
6 


82 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


perfectly well that if I wanted to stop him I could not. It seems 
to be Sam’s mission in life to keep other folks straight, and urge 
them on to better things while he meditates peacefully in the 
background.” 

She laughed and continued painting, but there was little mirth 
in the sound of her laughter. It had the effect of making him 
continue. 

“ Sam,” he said, “ is the most unselfish man I have ever met. 
When I was at work on ‘ Miles Standish ’ he cropped up on every 
page as the living illustration of John Alden ; but I didn’t put 
him in. His style and his manner convey nothing. You cannot 
tell from his appearance what sort of man he is.” 

“ I don’t know,” said the girl, slowly ; “ I think you can — a 
little.” 

“ Ah, but you know him.” 

She was busy with a very delicate piece of work, and before 
replying she touched the plate lightly once or twice with the end 
of her brush, and sat back a little to contemplate the result. 

“ Not so well as you do,” she murmured, absently, and yet en- 
couragingly, as if the topic interested her almost as much as her 
painting. 

“ No, of course not,” was the reply, given with a certain pride 
of possession. “ I suppose no one knows him so well as I do. 
If ever I were tempted to write a book (which the heavens for- 
bid; because I cannot compete against the lady novelist of the 
day !) I should follow him about with a note-book and a pencil to 
take down everything he said and did. Then I should work that 
into shape.” 

“ With the view of making him the hero ?” asked Elma, indif- 
ferently. 

“ Well — I don’t exactly know. He is hardly the style of hero 
admired by the reading publie of the day. No; he would bo 
in the book somewhere. He would represent a character which 
the lady novelist has wiped out : the character of a man — a man 
who is neither a fop nor a barber’s block, a humbug, a black- 
guard, a fool, or a woman dressed up in coat and unmentionables.” 

Elma laughed, because Tom had a terse, cheerful way of say- 
ing things which demanded laughter. 

“ Poor Mr. Crozier,” she said ; “ he would not recognize him- 
self, I am sure.” 


QUICKSAND. 


83 


“ Then other people might. Of course he would not, though. 
I do not suppose any of us would. I firmly believe that Sam 
looks upon himself as a lazy, selfish, good-for-nothing lounger.” 

“ He has a certain indolent way of moving and speaking,” said 
Elma, critically, “ but that is only habit. His mind is not indo T 
lent. It is a habit which many people have. Lily Gibb has it 
a little, and in reality she gets through as much work in a day as 
I do in a week. I think all sailors get it.” 

“ Save me,” ejaculated Tom, fervently, “ from a girl who gets 
through as much work in a day as another does in a week ! It is 
not the mission of girls to get through work.” 

“ I wish,” sighed Elma, putting back her hair, which was curl- 
ing forward very prettily over her ears, “ that I could look at it 
conscientiously in that light.” 

“It is the mission of girls,” said Tom, solemnly, “to paint 
flowers and gather them ; to make their little fingers in a mess 
over both occupations, and to fill up their spare time by flirting 
with their cousins.” 

Elma laughed and blushed rosily. Ah, that habit of blushing 
prettily and easily at the wrong time! When I write of it I 
must perforce lay down my pen and look out of the window up- 
ward towards the clouds. I once knew a person who blushed 
like that. 

Keeping her face averted, she rose suddenly and threw her 
brushes down pell-mell. 

“I was thinking,” she said, gravely, “of going for a long, 
quick walk.” 

He leaned forward and took hold of the extreme corner of her 
apron. 

“ No, don’t,” he pleaded. “ I apologize. Hear me swear — ” 

“Thanks. I would rather not hear you swear. If you feel it 
coming on you must go into another room.” 

“ Sit down, Elma, and go on painting,” said Tom, gravely. “ It 
was a libel — a base libel. Of course we all know — ” 

“ Now,” she said, holding up a warning paint-brush, “ you are 
going to make matters worse.” 

“ I doubt,” he said, with a short laugh, “ whether they could 
be worse. What were we talking about? Sam. Yes. I am 
going to talk about Sam. He is quite safe as a topic, and a 
friend in all weathers, at all times, and in every situation.” 


84 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER XII. 

HOLDSWORTH MOVES. 

It is a pity that theatrical managers are endowed with a very 
small power of recognizing that which is for their own benefit. 
This well-known blindness alone withholds my dramatic pen. A 
commercial spirit within this ardent soul points out the undenia- 
ble fact that it would be a waste of paper and ink, likewise of 
valuable moments, to write a really excellent play in face of a 
probability that the public would never enjoy it, or (says the 
Commercial Spirit) have the opportunity of paying to sit in a 
stall and yawn. 

Of course there are other dramatic pens, excellent quills, no 
doubt, with keen points chiselled by the stage carpenter and pol- 
ished by the property manager, but they fail in the depiction of 
a villain. Now, the villain of the play is an important person, 
almost as important, perhaps, as the violinist, who soothes our 
troubled breasts — pianissimo — when the hero talks to the moon 
at the open window, or the heroine bends over her dying father, 
and says nice things about her late maternal relative. The vil- 
lain is the spice, the salt and flavoring of stage existence, but he 
is lamentably unnatural. The heroine is all right ; she is sweet 
and womanly and tender. The hero is more or less real, although 
he is perhaps more eloquent and flowery in his love-scenes than 
we others acting on the broader stage. But this is perforce a 
matter in which men can judge from a purely personal point of 
view only, and I am not an eloquent man myself. The heavy 
father with a crime upon his conscience, or otherwise, is pass- 
able ; hut the stage villain is no more like the villains of real life 
than the pantomime policeman is like the honest constable walk- 
ing up and down the pavement below the window with loud- 
voiced boots at this moment. 

There are not many people around us who have seen the vil- 
lain rush away from their existence at the correct moment, with 
all his crimes exposed to public gaze, his love hurled into the 


HOLDSWORTU MOVES. 


85 


dust, his wretched mask wrenched aside. No ! In real life he 
brazens it out ; and some there are who pity him, while others 
Becretly admire. His constitution is robust; there is no reason 
to suppose that he will die young; there is not even the usual 
escaped criminal to rush on and say, “At last! at last!” previous 
to despatching him on the drawing-room carpet. On the con- 
trary, he will probably live long and borrow money. 

Again, it often happens that the heroine prefers the villain to 
the good young man, who talks to the moon while the fiddler 
fiddles. Here is a case in point. It is true, and so to those con- 
cerned an apology is hereby offered. The play is not over yet, 
and the issue is still uncertain, but I have a sort of lurking sus- 
picion that her heart is just a little inclined towards him. The 
worst of it is that he is a very nice fellow. I like him. But I 
am convinced that his part is that of the villain. He gained her 
affections years ago, when she was a mere child, and it seems that 
he has them still. He bullies her, neglects her, and is rude at all 
times. He must be the villain, but the fact is not recognized by 
the general public and the audience, as it should be. 

Most assuredly there is something wrong about the stage vil- 
lain, but as this is not a play, and is not even written with the 
view of some one else dramatizing it without leave and making a 
Jot of money, there is perhaps no need to lead up any farther to 
the statement that William Holdsworth was not a thorough-paced 
villain. He did not possess the requisite backbone, and he was 
too susceptible, too soft-hearted, and too easily led. 

The advent of his whilom officer at Goldheath was annoying, 
to say the least of it, but as he was just then under thh ,fpell of 
Elma’s beauty and sweet girlish fascination, he was in a jealous 
frame of mind. Things had hitherto gone very well. He saw 
Elina frequently, she was always gracious and kind to him ; and, 
as is the way with young men, he was fully convinced that she 
loved him. He was determined to win her for his wife, and as 
he knew that sooner or later Samuel Crozier would (to use his 
own expression) run foul of him, he audaciously sought the dan- 
ger. As previously observed, he was courageous enough ; but 
although brave, the move was unwise. He should first have dis- 
covered the degree of intimacy existing between Crozier and the 
Valliants. He should have gained from Elma a further insight into 
the character of the man whom he had only known as a kind 


86 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


officer and patient benefactor. All these and similar precautions 
he neglected ; and moreover, he counted too much upon, the pos- 
sibility of not being recognized. The result was a failure, and 
Holdsworth found himself under the influence of a mind stronger 
than his own, a will superior to his. Impertinence quailed before 
cool justice. Audacity fell back in face of courage. 

There was nothing for it but the consumption of humble pie. 
It was not his fault that he met Crozier again on the following 
day. His guest, Walter Varden, armed with a genial invitation 
from the squire, expressed a desire to skate on the Old Canal, and 
so they talked over to Goldheath. The unwelcome news that a 
girl who certainly did owe her ruin to him, although he had al- 
most forgotten the matter, was under Crozier’s protection and 
existing upon his charity, came at first as a severe blow ; but 
Holdsworth was hardly a scrupulous man, and not over-nice in 
his susceptibilities. It was, he argued, a mere piece of Quixotism 
on the part of the ex-naval officer, and if the girl had been left 
alone she would have found her own level. It was therefore mere- 
ly a matter of levels, upon which, however, folks are prone to dis- 
agree. 

There were, he reflected, extenuating circumstances. The girl, 
whose parents kept a small tobacconist’s shop in Gibraltar, had 
come more than half-way to meet his advances. She had led him 
on, and the consequences were at her own door. These ungal- 
lant reflections were, unfortunately, more or less true. There was 
that modicum of veracity in them whjch can so easily be enlarged 
at will. But he did not care to think very much over this ques- 
tion. It was an incident in his life which jarred inharmoniously 
with this new love unwittingly inspired by Elma Valliant, and it 
suggested an uncomfortable question as to whether a man can 
love two women at the same time. This phenomenon occurs at 
times, and in the majority of cases it is the old love that wins, 
unless circumstances favor, to an exceptional degree, the new. It 
may be that conscience has some influence in this matter, but in 
William Holdsworth’s case this factor was wanting. His con- 
science was dead. He preferred not to inquire too deeply into 
the question, and in the mean time he waited patiently until Tom 
Valliant should leave Goldheath. After the accident he kept 
away from the house, contenting himself with sending a groom 
to inquire after the broken bone every day. 


HOLDSWORTH MOVES. 


8 1 

One afternoon, however, he met Elma at the house of a mutual 
friend. He had gone on purpose to meet her, and yet there was 
no fixed plan of conduct in his mind. He was vaguely aware of 
his own vacillation, and rarely made plans. 

“Mr. Varden,” said Elma, when she had shaken hands, “has 
gone, I suppose V ’ 

In his quick, reckless way, Holdsworth saw an opportunity. 

“ Yes,” he answered, “ he has gone back to St. Antony’s. They 
are a strange lot, these medical students ; happy-go-lucky fellows, 
who appear to spend all their time in journalistic haunts and 
among theatrical people. Yarden gave me some very funny de- 
tails of their life. My faith in the medical profession has conse- 
quently become rather shaken. I dare say, however, that it is not 
the same in all hospitals.” 

Elma was listening in a perfunctory way. She nodded and 
smiled to a girl friend at the other end of the room before taking 
any notice of Holdsworth’s observations. 

“ I am afraid,” she said, at length, in a tone of marked indiffer- 
ence, “ that St. Antony’s is a trifle fast in its style.” 

Holdsworth stroked his beard shiftily. Then he changed his 
ground. 

“ Not all of them,” he said, reassuringly. “ Your cousin, for 
instance, seems to be quite untainted. He is a thorough gentle- 
man — ” 

“ Thank you, Willy,” she interposed, with a light laugh. 

The irony, slid off his back unheeded. 

“ I really mean it,” he said. “ From what Yarden told me, I 
somehow conceived the idea that the students associate with a set 
of men who do them no good.” 

He stirred his tea meditatively, and smiled in sympathy with a 
general laugh that came from the main group of visitors around 
the tea-table. Then he suddenly turned grave again and con- 
tinued : 

“ Actors,” he murmured, suggestively, “ and theatrical critics, 
journalists, and second-rate musicians.” 

Elma sipped her tea. There was very little in her cup, but she 
eked it out so as to make it last the longer. She looked straight 
in front of her, but in her round innocent eyes there was a sin- 
gular expression which was almost that of expectancy. He 
glanced towards her and saw it not, for his eyes were blind with 


88 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


admiration, and his spirit was puffed up at the realization of his 
own astuteness. In sublime ignorance he blundered on. 

1 ‘ Of course,” he said, didactically, “ such associations cannot be 
good for young fellows.” 

“ For Mr. Varden ?” she asked, innocently. 

“ No — o, no ; I think Varden is all right, although none of them 
can profit by the society of such men as — as I mentioned.” 

He glanced at her again. The tone in which she had spoken 
puzzled him. But her sweet face was sympathetically grave, as 
if thinking of a possible danger being run by her cousin, while 
her child-like eyes were a triumph of inscrutability. Holdsworth’s 
eyes travelled over her person, even down to her dainty feet, with 
an evil linger of admiration. Had he noticed her round white 
throat he would have seen that the muscles were moving slowly 
and restlessly beneath the milky skin, as if her teeth were clinched. 

“Still, I suppose these men are clever,” she suggested. 

“ In their way,” he allowed, graciously ; “ but they are a terri- 
bly idle set. It is a matter of genius, you understand — genius 
without application. And unless a genius is of the first water 
he is usually the reverse of an ornament to society. These men 
are the scum of the intellectual world.” 

She laughed and set aside her cup. Still she showed to him 
that he might continue. 

“ I am afraid,” she said, “ that your description interests me in 
them. Do you speak from personal acquaintance?” 

“ Oh no !” he said, cleverly avoiding a tone of self-satisfaction ; 
“ except indeed that — -Mr. Crozier ; but Walter Varden told me a 
great deal about them and their habits of life.” 

“Yes,” she murmured, slowly drawing on her gloves. There 
was a stir of departure in the room. In her eyes there was a 
faint gleam which almost amounted to triumph. 

“ Have you noticed,” whispered Mrs. Gibb to the hostess at the 
other side of the room, “ how Elma Valliant has lost her girlish- 
ness lately ? Look at her now ; she is a woman at this moment.” 

“And a very sweet woman,” answered the kindly old aristocrat. 
“A very sweet and charming woman, Mrs. Gibb. I wish I had a 
son young enough, and good enough, to try to win her.” 

“ There seems to be some one else,” whispered Mrs. Gibb, 
glancing at Holdsworth. 

“Ah !” replied the old lady, following her companion’s glance. 


HOLDSWORTH MOVES. 


89 


“ Who is that sitting beside her ? Mr. Holdswortb, is it not ? 
Yes, Mrs. Gibb, there may be some one else, but it is not William 
Holdsworth.” 

In the mean time Elma had buttoned her gloves. 

“ It is a pity,” Holdsworth was saying to her, “ that men like 
your cousin and Yarden, who have been well educated, and are 
essentially gentlemen, should be forced by circumstances to choose 
their friends among a class so distinctly beneath them in the 
social scale.” 

“ I have never heard,” said Elma, lightly, as she rose, “ of any 
one being forced to choose a friend. Surely there can be no 
choice where force is brought to bear.” 

“ Well, perhaps force is hardly the word. They are led to do 
so. Of course people say that it is bohemianism, and nothing 
worse. But men should not forget that their fathers were gen- 
tlemen, even if they should happen to possess a knack of writing, 
a trick of acting, or the gift of a voice.” 

He had risen, and was standing before her with a pleasant 
smile upon his brown face. His hands were hanging half 
clinched at his side, and he moved on his feet restlessly. She 
looked straight into his eyes with an innocent expression of at- 
tention to his words, and an utter disregard for the significance 
of his admiring gaze. 

“ But,” she said, “ I think there are no circumstances whatever 
to justify a man in forgetting that.” 

Then they crossed the room together, and Elma offered to 
drive Mrs. Gibb home to Goldbeath, which offer was accepted. 

Tom was at the door to meet her when she reached home. 
His limp was scarcely perceptible now. On the following day he 
purposed returning to town in order to see his publisher, and 
come to some definite decision about the future. 

“ Well,” he said, “ how has the muffin-worry gone off ?” 

“Ob, very well, thanks,” replied Elma, who was a little thought- 
ful. “ All the neighborhood was there.” 

Tom glanced at her sharply as she passed into the hall before 
him. It was a chilly evening, and she went straight to the fire, 
which burned merrily, and threw ruddy gleams upon the black 
rafters and panelling of the old room. 

“ Holdsworth ?” suggested Tom, interrogatively. He followed 
her, and stood before the fire. 


90 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Yes. He was there.” 

She leaned forward and held her gloved hands nearer to the 
flame. 

“ My fingers are simply frozen,” she said. “ Rocket pulled most 
viciously all the way home, and I could not let him go because 
of Mrs. Gibb’s nerves.” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Tom, with an intonation which might have 
indicated relief. “ She drove home with you ?” 

“ Yes. I dropped her at the Vicarage.” 

He knelt down on the black fur mat at her side, and took one 
of her hands. 

“ Poor little hands,” he said, with burlesque sympathy. Then 
he drew off her gloves for her, slowly and lingeringly. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DOCTOR’S MALADY. 

The next evening was one of some importance in the musical 
world, and Samuel Crozier was heavily engaged. He dined alone 
at the Savage Club, and afterwards walked across to Myra’s in 
order to learn whether Tom Valliant had returned to town. 

He passed through the outer room, where Myra herself was at- 
tending to the wants of a few diners, whose tastes or purses did 
not reach beyond the succulent products of the grill. Syra was 
never very busy between the hours of six and eight, and Crozier 
was not surprised, on drawing back the heavy curtain of the in- 
ner bar, to find but one toper there. This faithful admirer was 
not Tom Valliant. It was Wilson Leonard, the young house- 
surgeon. 

Crozier had heard stories connecting the name of the grave 
young doctor with the presiding goddess of the inner bar, but he 
possessed a strange faculty of stowing such tales neatly away in 
some inner pigeon-hole, where they were forever hidden from the 
eye of the curious. It was long before, when Wilson Leonard 
was a grave young student. 

He entered the small apartment with a smile, and a hand raised 
to his hat. There was no sign of surprise at finding these two in 


THE DOCTOR’S MALADY. 


91 


a somewhat confidential attitude at the far end of the room, both 
leaning upon the marble counter, beyond the high silver cof- 
fee-urn. 

“Good-evening, Syra,” said Crozier. “ How are you, Leonard ? 
I came in in the hope of finding a St. Antony’s man here. Do 
you know if Tom Valliant is back?” 

“No, old fellow, I don’t,” answered the young doctor. He 
crossed the room, and leaned against the little iron mantle-piece, 
so that he was as far away from Syra as the dimensions of the 
apartment would allow. 

Then Crozier turned to Syra. 

“ Have you heard anything about him ?” he asked, quietly. He 
was looking at her rather more searchingly than he was perhaps 
aware of, but she scarcely betrayed a sign of discomfort. The 
delicate pink of her cheek altered not in hue for reasons already 
hinted at; her mouth was slightly to one side, her lips delicate 
and ruddy, being pressed upward with a strained sense of effort. 
Only her eyes told him something. They gleamed defiance into 
his, daring him to think what he chose, to attempt as he might 
the perusal of her motives. But the very glance of defiance was 
a confession. It betrayed that Samuel Crozier’s opinion of her 
actions was a distinct factor in her conduct, that his approval or 
disapproval carried weight and influence. And yet he was noth- 
ing to her. He was one of many — merely a passer-by — who 
dropped in at odd moments to meet his friends and satisfy an 
imaginary thirst for the benefit of the establishment. Nothing, 
perhaps, but a strong, earnest man, who had a peculiar and em- 
barrassing way of treating her as if she might have been a lady. 
She knew that he was aware that Wilson Leonard had not spoken 
to her for nearly two years. Those close -set, inscrutable eyes 
could not hide that knowledge from her, and over the decanters 
she dared the singer to think that she had called the young doc- 
tor to come to her. 

“ No,” she answered, “ he has not been in here, Mr. Crozier ; 
and I have heard nothing of him.” 

Crozier struck a match and lighted his cigarette. He showed 
no intention of going just then. 

“ I suppose,” said Leonard, “ that you have dined ?” 

“ Yes,” answered Crozier, waving his match from side to side 
in order to save himself the trouble of blowing it out. 


92 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Then have a cup of coffee.” 

The singer accepted readily. He was well posted in certain 
intricacies of the hospitality of the bar, which is a question of 
getting in the first word. 

Before their eyes, while they both watched him, he deliberately 
poured some cold water into his coffee, which seemed forbid- 
dingly hot. Leonard contemplated the action gravely. Syra 
watched with indifferent eyes. It would be a nice and far-reach- 
ing question to solve whether either or both guessed that he was 
spoiling his coffee with a view of drinking it quickly and leaving 
them to themselves. 

“ If he comes in,” he said to Syra, “ please tell him that I am 
singing to-night, and shall not be home before eleven. After that 
time I shall be very glad if he will come in and have a pipe.” 

“ Yes,” answered she, “ I will tell him so, with pleasure.” 

He nodded to Leonard, raised his hat slightly to Syra, and with a 
murmured “good-night,” passed out between the curtains. It was 
none of his business, he reflected, if Wilson Leonard went to the dogs. 

He had not walked many yards, along the brilliantly lighted 
Strand (wending his even way assuredly through Virtue and Vice) 
when a band was slipped through his arm and some one walked 
alongside, falling into his pace. 

“ I have soon caught you up,” said Wilson Leonard, quietly. 

“Yes. One cannot get along very quickly through this crowd; 
it is just theatre-time, I suppose.” 

Conversation is not easily conducted in the Strand between 
seven and eight o’clock in the evening, when the later journals are 
in full cry, when cabs are colliding and their drivers exchanging 
civilities, when the “ pit ” doors are being cast open to the “ two- 
shilling” public. The two men walked together in silence be- 
cause they could only converse in shouts, and that which \vas to 
be said between them could not be cried aloud. 

“ Let us get out of this,” said Crozier, presently, and he led the 
way up a dark and narrow alley. It was not an aristocratic quar- 
ter through which they passed; malodorous, dark, and reeking 
with hopelessness and vice, it was at least quiet ; for neither of 
these are the children of light and noise. 

“ I have not been in that place for nearly two years,” said the 
house-surgeon, reflectively. 

“ No ?” said Crozier, with meek interrogation. He glanced up 


THE DOCTOR’S MALADY. 


93 


at the dark walls of Drury Lane Theatre, which they happened to 
be passing, and smoked vigorously in view of the approaching 
Covent Garden bouquet, which already assailed his sense of smell. 
This indolent singer was the unfortunate victim of confidences. 
These were poured upon him from all sides without his having in 
the least encouraged the confiders. It was the natural result of 
his quiet steadfastness. People with troubles upon them looked 
on him as a sort of well wherein to sink their woes — a well where 
Truth lay hidden, where all things dropped lay in safe and kindly 
darkness until called for. 

He knew that Leonard was going to confide in him. There 
was no help for it, so he looked meekly up to the heavens and 
essayed to inhale as little bad cabbage and putrid potato as possi- 
ble for the sake of his throat. 

“ I suppose,” continued Leonard, with an attempt at cynicism, 
“ that I was bound to go back some time or other.” 

“ Um !” observed the singer, sympathetically. 

When a man is determined to confide in one, it is next to an 
impossibility to turn aside the stream. The same is it when a 
man has made up his mind to tell a girl that he loves her. Let 
him get her alone for a few minutes, and I defy her to prevent 
him telling her, somehow or other, eloquently or clumsily, gayly 
or sadly, even if she wants to do so. 

“I suppose,” said the doctor, “that you would call it luck. 
When I left St. Antony’s I was fully convinced that a month at 
home among my people, with my sisters and their friends, would 
cure me of what was nothing more than a boyish fancy. Con- 
found that phrase ! Those boyish fancies leave a scar, Crozier, if 
they ever heal at all. I was done with St. Antony’s, done with 
London, and the Strand, and that confounded Myra’s. I thought 
at least that I had seen the last of Myra’s. Then came the offer 
of a house-surgeonship. Of course I had to accept it. It was 
clearly the only thing to do. They all called it a grand oppor- 
tunity. The governor leaned across the table and shook hands 
with me. The dear old boy is a baronet, you know, and terribly 
aristocratic in his ideas. While I held his hand, I knew that 
this grand opportunity meant — Syra; that sooner or later I would 
go back to that place. You strong-minded fellows don’t under- 
stand it, Crozier.” 

Crozier did not reply at once. He threw away his cigarette. 


04 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Don’t say that, Leonard,” he said, at length. “ I think every 
one understands it a little. It is a malady which is beyond us all, 
that is the long and short of it. The worst of it is that we can- 
not help each other much, because each fellow is best left to make 
his own muddles. The muddle will be made, you may be sure of 
that — we all do it ; but there is a melancholy satisfaction in the 
thought that you went your own way and had only yourself to 
blame. At least, I have found it so.” 

“It seems funny,” said Leonard, with a sudden laugh which 
came strangely from his grave lips, “ that a fellow who has been 
brought up with refined and gifted ladies, who has known and 
associated with delicate and attractive girls, should make an ass 
of himself by falling in love with a bar-maid — a girl who paints 
her face and touches her eyebrows with a black pencil, who is 
ready to accept compromising presents from the first spendthrift 
simpleton who comes along and asks for a drink — whose trade it 
is to flirt across the bar with every one, old and young, good and 
bad, drunk and sober — ” 

“ That will do,” interrupted Crozier, in his softest manner. 
“You will gain nothing by abusing her. You forget, Leonard, 
that I know Syra as well as you do. What you say is true 
enough about her class, no doubt, but it is not quite true of her !” 

They had crossed Leicester Square and were now in Piccadilly, 
where the tide of humanity flowed in a broader and brighter 
stream. From the darker haunts of poverty and vice they had 
emerged suddenly into a throng on pleasure bent, hurrying on- 
ward on foot, in cab and in carriage to theatres, concert-halls, 
and soirees. Most of the carriages were moving slowly in a long, 
serpentine file westward towards St. James’s Hall. 

In this throng conversation became more difficult. It was 
broken, and there were perforce long pauses in which both had 
time to think with the acquired absorption of Londoners, which 
remains undisturbed by noise and bustle. 

“Of course,” said Leonard, bitterly, “I cannot marry her. I 
am not quite sure that I want to. It would simply mean ruin to 
myself and endless sorrow to my relations. She would be miser- 
able, and so should I. The world never makes allowances — ” 

At this moment they were separated. Crozier passed through 
a narrow place and waited for his companion to come up. 

“ No, old man,” he said, when Leonard had retaken his arm, 


THE DOCTOR’S MALADY. 


95 


“the world never makes allowances. You must never expect 
that of it. I gave up doing so long ago. Time, Leonard, time 
is the only thing that can do it, and from what I have seen of 
life I am convinced that there is no sorrow, no disappointment, 
no bereavement which is beyond the power of time to cure.” 

“Oh,” replied the other, somewhat impatiently — Crozier was 
aggravatingly unemotional at times — “ oh, I dare say. No doubt 
it will be all the same a hundred years hence.” 

“ Yes,” assented the singer, “ probably ; let us hope so at least. 
I should not be surprised, however, if it were all the same, as far 
as we are concerned, thirty years hence, if you take that line of 
argument.” 

They were now in the brilliantly lighted entrance-hall of the 
building where the great ballad-concert of the year was about to 
take place. Brightly dressed ladies were passing in, throwing 
off, with due regard to their hair and flowers, dainty wraps and 
shawls. Among them were their attendant knights, some with 
long hair and musical aspirations, others with closer-cropped heads 
and truer music in their souls. As stated, it was a musical event, 
and among the throng passing through the entrance-hall many 
recognized Samuel Crozier, and turned to look at him again with 
a whisper to their friends. 

“ In the mean time,” Leonard was saying (for they were apart 
and the conversation was not laid aside yet) — “ in the mean time 

it is d d unpleasant to feel that I cannot get past the door of 

Myra’s, and to know that when I go in I shall find that girl flirt- 
ing with the last comer, and laughing at his double-meaning 
jokes. Such men as Marton, the old play-writer, who always 
shakes hands with her, and leers across the counter — a man with 
a face like a walrus and a voice like that of an omnibus-driver. 
Young fops like Varden — ” 

“ Look out 1” said Crozier, interrupting him ; “ he is just be- 
hind you. I will tell you what you will do to-night, Leonard ; 
you will come inside. Here is my card ; that will admit you, 
and there are sure to be some seats returned at the last minute ; 
they will give you one. Don’t you go back to Myra’s to-night. 
Next to time, there is no cure like music.” 

He spoke quickly in a low voice, for there were ears around 
him listening, and eyes that sought the face of this young singer. 
Bright eyes, some of them beneath lace shawls, held aside by bare, 


96 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


rounded arras — eyes that would not have been sorry to meet his. 
But he saw none of them. He was engaged just then in one of 
his Quixotic endeavors to throw out of the path of life a few of 
those jagged stones which lie in front of us all — stones which we 
all try to throw aside forever, but they only fall on the road 
where another is at work, and he is sure to pitch them back again 
with others that obstruct his way, and so the merry farce goes 
on. 

Of course Wilson Leonard obeyed. Most men obeyed Crozier 
when he stood before them in that square, persistent attitude, and 
spoke in a low, concentrated tone which was musical enough by 
reason of the suppressed force that was in it, and because Sam’s 
voice was always musical. The young doctor took the card with 
a murmur of thanks, and was about to move onward with the 
gay crowd when Walter Varden came up. 

This amiable young student had noticed that the public atten- 
tion was turned in some degree towards the two men, and he 
promptly took advantage of the situation. Such an opportunity 
of displaying his intimacy with a public character (for in that 
hall Crozier was as important a person as the Premier) was not 
to be lost. Therefore he swaggered up to them, immaculate as 
to shirt-front and button-hole, shiny as to sleek head, and well 
washed as to vacant face. 

“ Ah, Crozier,” he said, in a cunningly raised voice, “ how are 
you? Hallo, doctor — good - evening. I have just come from 
Myra’s ; expected to see some of you chaps there. The fair Syra 
is in great form to-night ; but she would not smoke a cigarette.” 

The two men looked at him gravely. Crozier examined crit- 
ically the single diamond stud upon his manly breast. There 
was a want of heartiness about his reception, but the public saw 
that he was on intimate terms. They could not fail to do that, 
and there was a pretty girl, whom he knew slightly, coming up- 
stairs. 

“Is Tom back yet?” he continued. Then he added roguishly: 
“Ah, Crozier, the lucky dog has been in clover all this time, you 
bet, with that little cousin of his. Nice little thing, with a figure 
like an angel, and a pair of eyes — ” 

He finished up with a short whistle, such as the conductor of 
an omnibus employs with a view of attracting the attention of 
his driver, given softly. 


BURNT FINGERS. 


97 


Crozier moved a little towards the door. The overture had 
been begun. There was a somewhat unnatural smile hovering 
about his lips, but his eyes were dull, as if he were making an ef- 
fort to control some emotion. 

“Varden,” he said, gently, “you are a pleasing mixture of a 
cad and a fool; at present the fool predominates; that is the 
best I can say for you.” 

Then he joined the stream of pleasure-seekers with Wilson 
Leonard at his side. 


CHAPTER XI Y. 

BURNT FINGERS. 

Shortly before eleven o’clock Crozier returned to Lime Court. 
There was a full moon, and the old houses were actually poetie. 
Poetry seems out of place, does it not, in the heart of London, in 
sight almost of the lowest haunts of mankind, within sound of a 
hundred harsh voices calling out the attractions of their evening 
papers ? And yet poetry lingered in the old courts and passages 
of the Temple that night. A solitary young barrister was walk- 
ing some way in front of Crozier, his light footstep ringing firm- 
ly on the pavement of the sleepy courts and passages. Presently 
this man let himself into one of the dark, narrow-windowed 
houses, and Crozier was alone. 

He walked slowly, with his ungloved hands in his pockets, his 
cigar held firmly between his teeth. As usual, he was humming 
a tune softly and reflectively. On entering the precincts of Lime 
Court he perceived that there was some one on his door-step. 
This person was not standing impatiently with his back against 
the door, but seated peacefully upon the step smoking a pipe. 
Immediately the plaintive note of a cat in distress broke upon 
the singer’s ears, very cleverly rendered, and dying away softly. 
The effect was so life-like amid the silent passages where there 
lingered an echo, that Tom Yalliant repeated the wail before 
rising from his humble seat. 

“Sam,” he said, tragically holding out his hand, “how is it 
with you? The situation is poetic. Young man discovered 
7 




The phantom future. 


courting lumbago on a stone step ; he smokes the pipe of medi- 
tation; there breaks upon the silence of the old mullioned dwell- 
ings a soft and murmurous sound. Is it a ghost? No! Is it 
the note of the nightingale ? No ! Is it the cat ? Yes ! To 
him comes presently a troubadour. His cloak flies in the wind, 
his shirt-front gleams in the cold moonlight. His cigar is tilted 
rakishly upward in the right-hand corner of his mouth ; his eye 
roves. The gallery cheers. They think the troubadour is 
screwed. Lend me your latch-key, and I will open the door. 
Thank you.” 

“When did you come up?” Crozier asked, presently, when 
they were in the comfortable room. He was turning up the gas 
and he glanced over his shoulder towards Tom. 

“ This afternoon, my boy,” was the answer. Tom seated him- 
self cheerfully and threw open his coat. The singer noticed that 
there was a small bunch of white violets in his button-hole. “ Yes, 
sir, this afternoon. I tore myself away from the delights of a 
country life and from — from my aunt.” 

Crozier knelt down on the hearth-rug and poked the fire leisure- 
ly. The far-seeing Mrs. Sanders had left a small copper kettle on 
the hearth, and this was soon brought into use in the very smoki- 
est part of the fire, where five men out of six would have placed 
it, and from whence six women out of seven would have caused it 
to be removed at once. 

“ Did you leave them all well ?” he asked, conventionally, with- 
out turning his attention away from the fire. 

Valliant pressed the tobacco into his pipe and blew the ashes off 
his gloved finger before answering. 

“ Yes, very well — thanks.” 

Then a short silence came over them. Crozier busied himself 
with the simple hospitality of his bachelor establishment. A to- 
bacco-jar was placed on the table, and a box of matches. Subse- 
quently the copper kettle came into use, and a sugar-basin was 
discovered incidentally in the lower part of the sideboard. This, 
however, was not indicative of tea. The odor that arose presently 
from steaming glasses was quite different from that of the subtle 
herb. It is painful to have to make this record, as it will perhaps 
lead to the downfall of Crozier and Valliant in the estimation of 
certain excellent people into whose hands this book may fall, but 
it must be remembered that I have never set up either as a hero. 


BURNT FINGERS. 


99 


When they were both seated the singer lighted his pipe. 

“I saw Varden to-night,” he said; “he was at St. James’s 
Hall.” 

Tom turned his head a little towards his companion, but his 
eyes were fixed on the fire. 

“ It was funny,” he said, pensively, “ that he should have turned 
up at Goldheath. Wken I saw him I cursed loud and deep in 
my sleeve. There was a taste of sulphur in my mouth for some 
time afterwards. The fellow is an ass, Samuel. It is rather ag- 
gravating that the only St. Antony’s man that Elma— that they 
— know down there should be Varden.” 

Crozier looked sympathetic and waited for him to talk of 
Holdsworth. This he did almost at once, for he had been think- 
ing of him since the mention of his friend’s name, for William 
Holdsworth was something more than a cipher in life at Gold- 
heath. 

“ That fellow Holdsworth,” observed Tom, “ was very kind in 
sending over almost every day to inquire after the health of the 
deponent.” 

“Sending?” repeated Crozier, with indifferent interest. 

“ Yes. He never turned up himself.” 

Crozier moved slightly, drawing in his legs and leaning forward 
as if about to rise. This he presently did and went to his bed- 
room, where he changed his dress-coat for a very shabby garment 
of brown velvet. Then he returned to his seat and smoked pen- 
sively. The result of his cogitations was soon forthcoming. 

“ There are certain biblical storieg,” he said, “ which are of a 
strictly contemporary nature. I mean that the incidents related 
could not very well happen nowadays. At all events, if they 
did take place, the result would probably be quite different.” 

Tom smiled suddenly. They knew each other very well, these 
two, despite the utter disparity of 'age and thought and nature ; 
and the younger man was quick-witted enough to follow his 
friend’s meaning even while he was speaking. 

u Wisdom,” he said, solemnly, “ is falling heavily from thy 
lips. You are quite right, Sam. It may be that in ancient days 
pigs were housed upon a different principle, but it seems to me 
in these times that there is a faint aroma of the sty about the 
young man who returneth to his father.” 

That was all they said about Holdsworth. They never discussed 


100 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


him more fully than that. Indeed, it happened that Tom Valliant 
remained in ignorance that there was anything else to say. Crozier 
was singularly charitable for a man who had knocked about in 
the world. He was at heart a sailor, and sailors are undoubtedly 
the most charitable men on earth in a simple, straightforward, 
honest way. It may also have been some memory of dangers 
passed through together, of days spent on sunny seas beneath a 
cloudless sky, that prompted this ex-sailor to conceal his knowl- 
edge of William Holdsworth’s history, for when a man claims 
you as a shipmate he invokes a very strong spirit of comradeship. 

Crozier would have liked to warn Elma also against this man, 
subtly and vaguely as he had warned Tom, but this he could not 
do. There was no course open to him beyond leaving it to her 
pure, maidenly instinct (which is a wondrous sure guide) to de- 
tect the ring of false metal. He did not know that Holdsworth 
had warned her himself by a stupid blunder. 

The singer now changed the subject. He spoke of the concert, 
and incidentally mentioned that Wilson Leonard had been there. 
This led to the disclosure of a fact of which Crozier had hitherto 
been ignorant — namely, that Dr. Leonard’s secret was almost pub- 
lic property at St. Antony’s. 

“ By-the-way,” Tom said, “ I was told to-day that he was back 
at Myra’s. There was something serious between Leonard and 
Syra, I believe, when he was a student. The fellows say that 
they were engaged at one time. At all events, I know that he 
was always there, watching her every glance and movement. He 
tried, I believe, to get her away from the place, but she would 
not go governessing; and I suppose it would hardly have done 
for the fiancee of Wilson Leonard, Esq., to have served behind a 
genteel counter.” 

“ I am very, very sorry for the fellow,” said Crozier. “ He is 
making a muddle of his life.” 

“ Well,” answered Tom, with a sudden laugh, “ I suppose, in 
the eyes of the disinterested observer we all do that. It certain- 
ly seems as if he were burning his fingers, but that again is a com- 
mon practice. We do it in different ways, that is all. Even 
I, old man, I, the practical, the light-hearted, the callous, have 
been doing so.” 

More confidences. Crozier rose suddenly from his seat and 
poked the fire. He moved about the room and took up the 


BURNT FINGERS. 


101 


evening paper casually, looking at the advertisement columns with 
deep interest. Leonard’s tale was bad enough, but Crozier would 
have given a great deal, for reasons of his own, to be sphred this. 

“ Yes,” he was compelled, however, to murmur. 

Tom Valliant sat quite motionless in the deep arm-chair, wait- 
ing until his friend should be seated or still. His slim white 
hands were clasped round his knee. His head was slightly on 
one side, and he was very pale— paler perhaps than usual. His 
lips, which were thin and sensitive, were parted slightly, and his 
heavy eyelids seemed to weigh wearily over his eyes. It was a 
beautiful face, of a delicate and super-refined mould, but there 
was strength in it too ; the patient enduring strength of a wom- 
an. Such a face as that is always a study, frequently a lesson. 
But just at that moment it was not pleasant to look upon. It 
was the face of a miserable and hopeless man. 

The singer stood on the hearth-rug with his elbow resting on 
the mantle-piece. He held the evening paper in his hand and 
was still studying the advertisements. The contrast between 
these two men reached even into the tiny subtle differences of 
carriage and attitude. Valliant sat with his fingers interlocked 
around his knee ; the attitude was a favorite one with him. 
Crozier stood, and, moreover, he stood squarely and indepen- 
dently. The arm resting on the mantle-piece was not support- 
ing his weight. He never clasped his hands or interlocked 
his fingers. His limbs (if the expression be comprehensible) 
never supported each other. Do you see the difference ? If not, 
it must be the fault of this halting pen. It exists ; it is in glar- 
ing evidence around us every day, but we go on — go on wilfully 
and deliberately — ignoring the resemblance that most assuredly 
will be found between a man’s mind and his limbs. In either 
attitude lay the story of an existence. 

There was a singular stillness in the room for a few seconds, 
then Tom Valliant spoke. 

“ When,” he said, reflectively, “ a man is shut up for a fort- 
night in a country house with a girl whom he has been trying to 
avoid for the last three years, the chances are rather in favor of 
burnt fingers.” 

The singer was reading the paper no longer. He had not 
moved, but his eyes were looking over the journal, presumably 
into the folds of the heavy red curtains, 


102 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“You talk,” he said, at length, in measured tones, “ as if there 
were points of resemblance between your case and Leonard’s. I 
do not see those points.” 

He stopped for a second and brushed aside his mustache with 
a quick movement of the fingers. 

“ Some day you will,” said Tom, in that moment, but in such 
a low voice that it seemed probable that Crozier did not hear. 

“ Of course,” continued Crozier, tranquilly, “ you may call it 
burning your fingers if you like, but it is only a pleasant fable. 
Leonard cannot possibly marry Syra ; it would only lead to end- 
less misery, and a few months of unhappiness is better than a 
lifetime. You could marry in six months if you chose to work. 
Leonard has good prospects, but they would be ruined by mar- 
riage with a bar-maid, whereas your work would be assisted, if 
anything, by your marrying and settling down. His people 
would cast him off, yours would be delighted at the idea — ” 

Suddenly Tom interrupted him with a merry laugh. 

“ You are the greatest architect I know,” he exclaimed. 
“ Your castles are a triumph of artistic excellence — but, my 
friend, the building material is only found in Spain. It has just 
struck twelve ; I must seek my humble dwelling. Craven Street 
looks well at midnight.” 

He rose and put on his top-coat with a great display of energy. 
Crozier smiled, without, however, losing the thread of his dis- 
course. 

“ Personally speaking — ” he hazarded, deprecatingly, but he got 
no further. He moved away from the mantle-piece towards the 
window and drew aside the heavy curtain, looking searchingly 
into the night for some seconds. There was no visible motive in 
this action, for it was a clear moonlight night, and there was no 
question of rain. He did not even look upward to the sky, but 
across to the dark houses opposite. He turned and allowed the 
curtain to fall back into its place, crossing the room in a vague, 
peculiar way. 

“ Personally speaking,” he began again, as if with a slight ef- 
fort, “you are the only man I know who is good enough for 
her.” 

“ Thank you, Sam,” said Yalliant, simply. He was ready to 
go, with his hat set jauntily upon the back of his head. He 
moved towards the door, followed by his companion. 


A CREATURE OF IMPULSE. 


103 


“ I don’t sec how you can imagine that there is an obstacle,” 
said Crozier, almost argumentatively, when they were in the 
passage. 

Tom turned on the door-step and shook hands. 

“ Some day you will see it,” he said, ambiguously. Then he 
ran lightly down the steps, and walked away into the shadow 
. without looking back. 


CHAPTER XV. 

A CREATURE OF IMPULSE. 

There are certain definitions of human character which have 
acquired in use a meaning never conveyed by the words spoken. 
To be called a creature of impulse is to-day a compliment. This, 
perhaps, arises from the melancholy fact that impulse as a human 
incentive is dying away from among us. We are becoming so 
wise, so prudent, so self-suppressing, that we rarely act, either for 
good or evil, without thinking twice upon the matter. 

Now Impulse, like Prudence, is a double-faced hussy. Once 
she goads us towards good, and we, hesitating, leave that good 
undone. The next moment she will urge us towards evil, and 
again we draw back. This sounds like a doctrine of counter- 
balance, but it is not such. Impulsive goodness is superior to 
slow beneficence. Bis dat qui cito dat. While impulsive evil is 
less loathsome than wrought-out, thought-out wickedness. 

When it is stated that William Holdsworth was a creature of 
impulse, it is therefore conveyed additionally that he possessed 
redeeming virtues. 

The influence exercised over him by the mere presence of Elma 
Valliant was not a good one. Her beauty made him jealous that 
other men should have eyes to see it also. Her sweet and cheer- 
ful individuality did not soothe his spirit. The effect of it was 
to cause wild schemes of winning her to flit through his brain — 
unscrupulous schemes, most of them, smacking of the convenient 
sophistry of the sea-lawyer. The impulse given to his soul was 
that of evil, and being open to the movements of mental impulse, 
he succumbed readily enough. 

Once he sought to poison her mind — gratuitously and with no 


104 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


definite aim — against the man to whose Quixotic beneficence ne 
owed more than he cared to think about. Indirectly he endeav- 
ored to lower Tom Yalliant’s position in her estimation by care- 
less hints of misdoings in London, and — grossest error of all— he 
never lost an opportunity of blowing his own trumpet. 

Women are most wonderfully tolerant of vanity, conceit, and 
bumptiousness in young men, much more so than their brothers; 
but their love (at least if they be true women) has never been 
won by virtues of which the happy possessor has been the first to 
make mention. In other words, a woman never loves the man we 
love. Most of us manage to convey, sooner or later, to her whose 
love we seek the picture of a wonderful individuality which we 
modestly take to be our own. But — if we win — it is not that 
individuality which she loves; it is another which she constructs 
for herself. This latter creation is probably as far from the real- 
ity as our own, but if she elects to blind herself into the belief 
that we are the incarnation of an impossible human being, it is 
wiser to refrain from too close inquiry, or enlightenment. 

Elma never loved William Holdsworth. The thought of it 
never entered her head. She considered him very pleasant to 
talk to, for he had a thousand little tales of adventure to tell, such 
as women love to hear. Of these he was with suspicious invarie- 
ty the- hero, and with due modesty he related them. He had 
pleasant, hearty ways with him, and he was neat and clever with 
his hands, as most sailors are. Perhaps she flirted with him, just 
a little, in an inuocent, childish way which was beyond his com- 
prehension. There was that glamour of an evil past in his favor, 
and it rendered him interesting in the sight of this inexperienced 
and imaginative girl. Truly the ways of innocence are strange. 
To-day Elma is no longer a girl, she is no longer a young woman 
even. She has passed through sorrow and great joy. She has 
smiled in the sun, and she has wept in the shadow. She has 
known many men and women, and their characters have been 
patent, to her understanding. Yes, she is most certainly an ex- 
perienced woman of the world, but that sweet fascinating inno- 
cence has never left her. It is like pure snow, which makes the 
shadows that lie upon it look beautiful. Nothing will ever sully 
the purity of her mind. I do not think she will ever believe in 
the existence of evil pure and simple. With her it is nothing 
worse than negative good. 


A CREATURE OF IMPULSE. 


105 


William Holdsworth was a constant surprise to her. Little virt- 
ues and pleasant accomplishments were forever turning up at odd 
moments. In a semi-interested way she made a sort of study of 
him — such studies as young men make of maidens, and thought- 
ful maidens make of men — studies made in a purely contempla- 
tive spirit ; mere observations on the ways of human nature. We 
all study at that school, but we never learn to keep away from the 
fire ; to keep a firm hold upon our contemplative hearts. 

Elma Yalliant was far from expecting an immediate -result to 
her investigations, but this came a few weeks after Tom had re- 
turned to town. As usual, luck was against Holdsworth, but for 
once he did. not' recognize the fact. Luck in this case consisted 
of a dimly lighted conservatory, where a soft pink glow lay on 
the delicate flowers ; where the atmosphere was heavy with the 
melancholy odor of refined white blossoms such as stephanotis, 
tuberose, and lilies of the valley. There was music also in a dis- 
tant room, the voice of a violin in the cunning hands of a poetic 
Italian, who made* the instrument wail out the waltz-tune softly. 
Everything was against Holdsworth — dead against him. And 
Elma was at his side, just a little breathless, the flowers on her 
dress a little crushed, and the lace rising and falling rapidly. The 
moment was propitious for the study of human nature, and Elma 
saw it in a new phase. 

Holdsworth was glancing at her sidewise. They were quite 
alone in the conservatory. The path of virtue lay before him 
bright and smooth just then. 

“Elma,” he said, softly, “do you remember years ago when the 
canal was full there were boats upon it ?” 

“ Yes,” she answered, wondering, “ I remember.” 

“And once we had a large picnic in two boats above Scar 
Lock.” 

“ Oh yes, I remember, and you had a fight with a little boy.” 

Holdsworth wondered uncomfortably whether she recollected 
that the boy was considerably smaller than himself. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I was going to remind you of that fight. Do 
you know that the quarrel originated with you ? I wanted to be 
in the same boat as you. It is long ago, Elma. We were 
quite little then, but the boy who wanted to be near you is of the 
same mind still.” 

He stopped and laid his hand upon her wrist. Elma expe- 


106 


1 THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


rienced a sudden sense of chilliness all over. There was an ob- 
struction in her throat, and she prayed inwardly that something 
might happen suddenly — as it does in boots — to prevent him say- 
ing more. But nothing did happen. The music went on, and 
there was a vibration in the floor as of people dancing. In a dark 
corner of the conservatory the monotonous drip, drip of a tap im- 
perfectly turned made itself heard. Holdsworth had taken her 
hand within his fingers now. 

“ I know,” he said, “ that I have done little good in the world. 
I have had a hard fight to keep straight, for luck has been against 
me from the very first. Every one has given a helping push to 
the man who seemed destined to go downhill. The one thing 
that saved me, the one thought that encouraged me was the re- 
membrance of that little girl — the little queen of my boyhood. 
Through hardship and danger, through hope and despair, I have 
thought of that little girl and wondered whether she remembered 
the boy who fought for a place at her side. When at last I saw 
the old country again, the golden heath and the placid Old Canal, 
the only question I asked myself was, ‘ How will Elma greet 
me V ” 

He was very earnest, but in the impulse of the moment he was 
reeling off lies most imprudently. Elma also was of an impulsive 
nature, but, strange to say, she was quite calm and self-possessed 
now. She made no attempt to release her hand from his grasp. 
She felt his other hand at her dainty waist, but she left it unmo- 
lested. His very earnestness should have carried her away ; the 
thrilling tones of his deep voice so near to her ear should assured- 
ly have touched a maiden’s heart. But it must be remembered 
that Elma was no longer a girl in her teens. No one, it is true, 
had ever spoken to her in such tones as these before ; no one had 
held her hand in such a grip as this ; but there are some situations 
in life in which instinct is infallible while experience is useless. 
A young, heart-whole girl would have succumbed to the man’s 
power of wooing. Elma found herself criticising the sincerity 
of his words. To some people the quick knowledge of wise 
action, which is vaguely called presence of mind, only comes when 
the danger is actually upon them. For some time back Elma had, 
in her more thoughtful moments, contemplated the bare possibil- 
ity of this avowal, but Holdsworth’s manner had deceived her ; his 
lightness of heart had instilled a false confidence. And now that 


'A CREATURE OF IMPULSE. 


107 


the moment had come, she was equal to the, emergency. She was 
actually thinking how she should word that which she had to say 
to him. 

Suddenly she rose; but he remained seated. She stood in 
front of him and looked down at his stalwart form. Strange to 
say, his eyes were averted instead of seeking hers. Again he re- 
minded her of Samuel Crozier. No two men could have been less 
like each other in nature or face, but there was some subtle point 
of resemblance in the manner in which they held themselves — a 
suggestion of past discipline through which both alike had passed. 

“ Willy,” she said, gravely, “ when I heard that you had come 
back I was very glad indeed, because I thought that it would 
lead to the renewal of an old friendship. If you say any more 
you will shatter that friendship utterly, and nothing can ever 
patch it together again.” 

“ I suppose,” he said, almost humbly, “ that you look upon me 
as a hopeless ne’er-do-well, an idler, and a vagabond — a sort of 
person, in fact, whom no lady in her senses would ever think of 
loving.” 

This appeal was clever. It had paid well upon former occa- 
sions. He rose and stood beside her, with real and earnest dejec- 
tion depicted on his handsome face. 

“ No,” she answered, “ I suppose nothing of the sort. It has 
never entered my head to pass a mental judgment upon you or 
your doings. If any of us had thought what you suppose, we 
would not have been insincere enough to assume a friendliness 
we did not feel. If,” she continued, with sudden contrition — “ if 
I am to blame in this — if, I mean, I have led you into any mis- 
take, I am very, very sorry.” 

He shrugged his shoulders in a deprecating way, as if to imply 
that his own feelings were of secondary importance, and yet to 
insinuate that he had received no light blow. The movement 
betrayed a certain knowledge of women and their ways, for noth- 
ing appeals so strongly to the female heart as its own sympa- 
thy drawn nolens volens towards a strong man who rather avoids 
than seeks it. By that slight shrug William Holdsworth placed 
himself in this position with regard to Elma. He was thus the 
victim of a flirt — a simple, straightforward man deceived and 
ruined in happiness by a pair of coquettish eyes. And, moreover, 
he fully believed it himself, for it is a part of some characters, 


108 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


especially those that possess weakness and strength strangely 
mixed, to deceive themselves with even greater success than they 
deceive others. 

“ I suppose,” he said, in a dreamy way, without looking at her 
— “ I suppose there is some one else.” 

This cool supposition, put forward in a vaguely meditative way, 
not untinged with a hopeless despair, was calculated to leave Elma 
in rather an awkward position. It was distinctly a question, and 
yet she could not take it as such and tell him tragically that he 
had no business to ask it. If she treated it with silence the in- 
ference would be that the supposition was correct, and I have 
already said that no man had hitherto spoken to Elma Valliant 
of love treated personally. Further than that it is neither wise, 
courteous, nor instructive to peer into her heart. Of course you 
may infer. We may all infer, in our great astuteness. And 
what wealth of inference may be drawn from the fact that this 
dainty little maiden was out of her teens, and that she had moved 
in both country and town circles, looking upon men with those 
dangerously innocent eyes of hers, without having heard a word 
of love ! Of course we all clamor that the reason of it is that she 
did not want to, and that she had managed very well to slip out 
of dangerous positions. But why did she not want to ? Here I 
must leave you, being out of my depth, and a poor swimmer in 
troubled waters. 

She looked down at her companion without a blush. 

“ I do not see,” she said, “ what that has to do with the question.” 

He was very much in love with her in his way, and he could 
not quite persuade himself that she did not love him. This lat- 
ter is a way we have in our masculine modesty. We cannot fully 
realize that the young person whom we honor with our youthful 
affections can do otherwise than love us most consumedly. It 
would only redound to her infinite credit and good taste. This 
happy blindness, however, lasts no length of time, and I am told 
that when a man does win the love of a woman — the great, glori- 
ous, unreserved love — his first feeling is one of fear. He is there- 
after divided between a sense of his own utter unworthiness and 
a vague, uncomfortable feeling that he has got more than he quite 
bargained for or knows what to do with. 

Holdsworth was, however, untroubled by any such misgivings 
as these. He was still in the first happy period of conscious irre- 


A CREATURE OF IMRULSE. 


109 


sistibility, because perhaps he had never won the love of any 
good woman. And although it would appear that Elma did not 
love him yet, he was fully and pleasantly convinced that it was 
only the matter of a little more time. Had he looked up into 
her face just then he would assuredly have thought twice over 
this conviction, or had he taken the trouble to study a photograph 
of Elma which was gradually fading in his mother’s album, he 
might never have said the words that came naturally to his lips. 
There is a pleasant and harmless little theory (doubtless leading, 
as most theories do, to nothing) that photographs are more nat- 
ural than they are usually considered. If a man shows you a 
likeness of himself, and the face delineated is that of a weak and 
vapid person, custom and politeness bid you abuse the sun and 
the artist. It is not the face yon are accustomed to see. But it 
is just possible that you have never seen the real face — only a 
mask; because masks are worn as successfully to hide weakness 
as to conceal strength. The photograph may cause you to think 
about your friend — may awaken suspicions or arouse questions; 
and if it does, the result will be a verdict in favor of the sun. 
Thus, fierce people who smile sweetly upon the world will uncon- 
sciously assume a ferocity of demeanor before the camera; and 
people who possess a dainty little square chin, like Elma Valliant, 
will poke it forward and impart a sense of determination to their 
features which the softest of eyes cannot counteract. 

But Holdsworth had not studied the faded photograph (which, 
by-the-way, had been condemned as a bad likeness), and was in 
total ignorance of that little square chin, which was at this mo- 
ment singularly noticeable. 

“ Well,” he muttered, doggedly, “ I believe you love me, and I 
simply won’t take no. I shall go on hoping, Elma, as long as I 
live.” 

Ah, human nature ! Yes, human nature, for women are no 
better than men. There is nothing to choose between us. One 
would almost imagine that Holdsworth did not know that a 
week’s absence would make him forget all about Elma Yalliaut — 
that he was ignorant of the dormant feeling towards the girl 
whom Crozier had rescued from his clutches — a feeling which 
held his vacillating heart as nothing else had held it, and which 
for want of a comparative name must perforce be called love; 
love as understood by William Holdsworth — and the rest of us. 


no 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ I will never,” said Elma, with dangerous calmness, “ be bullied 
or frightened into loving you. Surely you know me well enough 
to recognize that.” 

She turned half away from him, and moved towards the door, 
but before she had taken two steps his arms were around her, 
crushing her painfully. With sudden passion he kissed her twice 
on. the lips, and strange to say, she made no resistance. Then he 
released her with equal abruptness. She stood for a moment, 
while he looked down at her, breathing hard ; then she raised 
her gloved hand, and pressed back over her ear a tiny wisp of 
golden hair that had escaped and curled forward to her smooth 
cheek. When at last she spoke, there was in the tone of her 
voice a withering contempt, a cool, fearless despisal, infinitely 
more cruel than the hottest indignation. 

“ You do not know,” she said, “ what love is.” 

And without another word she left him, walking away quietly* 
and without haste. In the drawing-room she found her father 
standing with his hands behind him, watching the dancers, with 
his genial, hearty smile ; and slipping her hand within his arm, she 
stood beside him. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

INTRUDERS. 

With inexplicable dilatoriness Tom Valliant wasted his time 
at St. Antony’s. Some weeks had elapsed since the publication 
of the book so successfully illustrated by him, and its career was 
assured. A second edition upon superior paper, with a view to 
doing better justice to the engravings, was already in hand, and 
offers of work, and well-paid work, were showered upon him. 
Artists of standing began to ask each other whose pupil this 
new man was, where he had acquired his art, and from whence 
he came; but publishers asked no questions, they w'anted to 
secure his pencil and not his past. These clear-sighted readers 
of the public taste knew better than to cavil at a man’s work 
because it was the emanation of genius, untaught callow genius, 
instead of straitlaced talent. Some of them even went so far 
as to oppose Samuel Crozier’s advice, boldly telling Valliant to 


INTRUDERS. 


Ill 


shun all art schools. I have an immense respect for the astute- 
ness and foresight of the average publisher, and it would almost 
seem from a study of facts that these Philistines were right, and 
the thoughtful singer wrong. The kingdom is plentifully stocked 
with art schools. No small town is complete without an estab- 
lishment of this description, duly connected with the head-centre 
in London. No doubt the popular taste, the artistic feeling of 
the multitude, is raised by their agency, but do these schools pro- 
duce artists? It would appear not. Frenchmen come across — 
unwashed, untaught, merry Frenchmen, if you please — who have 
never looked upon a plaster cast in their lives with the intention 
of drawing it, and they illustrate our newspapers as we cannot 
illustrate them ourselves. Italians — long-haired, melancholy Ital- 
ians — come and hang upon the walls of our exhibition-rooms 
pictures painted with a delicacy and truth which make our best 
wielders of the brush feel humble. Hard-smoking Germans sit 
down in our engraving-shops, and bend over the Frenchman’s 
drawing with a result infinitely creditable. And the worst of it 
is that these men are totally without artistic training. Some of 
them, indeed many of them, have actually never been taught at all. 
The age is essentially artificial, but are we not making a mistake 
when we take it for granted that art can be taught ? From the sta- 
tistics of art schools as regards their production of artists, it would 
seem that education kills instead of fostering this delicate growth. 

Tom Valliant did not deign to explain whether he was guided 
in this matter by his would-be publishers or his natural laziness ; 
but he treated all suggestions of study in a hopelessly jocose 
spirit, which entirely killed any argument upon the subject. 

“ In much study,” he would say, in a tone of which the solem- 
nity led many to believe that they had been crushed by a Biblical 
quotation, “ is also great vanity. I am not vain, but as long as 
people are willing to buy I am willing to draw things as I see 
them.” 

He undertook to illustrate a story to be brought out shortly in 
a magazine ; began slowly, and suddenly became interested in it, 
finishing in a few weeks in such a manner as to make the pub- 
lisher come forward at once with a handsome bid for the monop- 
oly of his pencil, which, however, he refused. 

Withal, his name was still upon the books of St. Antony’s Hos- 
pital, and he attended lectures, and put in an appearance in the 


112 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


dissecting-room in a desultory way. When questioned he laughed 
carelessly, and talked vaguely of going on to the end of the term, 
when he would see what turned up. In his attendance at Myra’s, 
however, he was very regular, much more so than Sam Crozier 
liked ; but, like a wise man, the singer made no comment — in>- 
deed he did not appear to notice it. 

“ It seems to me,” Syra said to him one evening, in her neat, 
clipping way, “ that you are an adept at letting things slide.” 

Valliant had just left them, accompanied by some rather up- 
roarious friends, bent upon visiting a transpontine music-hall of 
doubtful reputation, merely, he explained, with a view of study- 
ing human nature in a new phase. 

There was no mistaking her meaning, and Crozier did not pre- 
tend to. He smiled slowly in answer to the thinly hidden bitter- 
ness of her tone, and looked at her with a quizzical tolerance. 

But there was no answering smile in her peculiarly lifeless 
eyes, and the sad lips were firmly closed. 

“ I can’t see why you do it,” she added, impatiently. 

He was smoking a cigar, which he removed from his lips be- 
fore leaning his elbojv resignedly upon the marble counter. 

“ Parables,” he said, with mock humility, “ parables which this 
thick head cannot elucidate.” 

“ Why did you let him go to that place to-night ?” she asked, 
as she turned aside and washed some glasses noisily. It almost 
seemed as if the matter had a greater interest for her than she 
cared to show. Crozier did not always understand Syra; she 
interested him greatly, and he studied her at times with a kindly 
and tolerant keenness. He frequently forgot that she was only 
a bar-maid — a creature whom you and I, gentle reader, would not 
expect to possess any human interest at all, any feelings worthy 
of our virtuous consideration, any thought above vapid flirtation 
across the counter. Steeped in vice she must of course have 
been to the tips of her pink fingers — her calling vouched for that ; 
a living decoy, her trade and profession was to entrap the unwary, 
to lure innocent and confiding young men to their destruction, 
and to sell her smiles with the liquor she handed across the coun- 
ter to the highest bidder and the deepest drinker. 

It was a strange friendship, and one, we all know, infinitely 
discreditable to any one pretending, as Crozier sometimes did, to 
the title of gentleman. I will not attempt to defend him. He 


INTRUDERS. 


113 


himself would not have done so, laboring as he did under the 
reprehensible notion that so long as his motives were clear and 
honorable to himself, the rest of the world was at perfect liberty 
to look on, criticise, and find fault just so much and so long as it 
pleased. And in this matter Tom Valliant’s welfare was a strong 
and visible motive. 

They quarrelled in a semi-serious, semi-mocking way, these two 
strange beings ; and, moreover, they loved quarrelling with each 
other and no one else in the world. Through the veil of mock- 
ery there peeped occasionally something more serious. At times 
there was a second meaning behind the “ staccato ” abruptness of 
the girl or the man’s tolerant cynicism, and these tiny shafts of 
truth were never lost. Thus they had learned to know each other 
very well, better perhaps than each in turn suspected. 

Samuel Crozier and Tom Valliant were, as Syra had once said, 
different from the rest of the frequenters of the little bar beyond 
the thick curtain. This difference may have been a mere creation 
of the girl’s fancy (for even a bar-maid may possess imagination, 
poor soul !), but it is certain that they occupied a different place 
in her mind. The one with his grave good-breeding, his sug- 
gested cynicism, and his quiet way of telling home-truths, and 
the other with his everlasting good spirits, his assumed chaff, and 
his smiling rrfask, were different in her imagination insomuch as 
they were credited with meaning. The rest had no meaning — 
they were merely happy, thoughtless boys, or improvident, reckless 
men. Some instinct told the girl that there was a purpose in 
these two friends — a purpose and another life of which “ Myra’s ” 
and their present day to day existence formed no part. They be- 
longed to a different world altogether. From a hundred little 
incidents, a hundred passing gestures, momentary silences, aftd 
veiled glances she drew with the unerring insight of her sex her 
own deductions. Though others had not noticed it, the remem- 
brance was patent to her that never since they had first set eyes 
upon each other had Samuel Crozier, in mere reckless fun, or 
with that peculiar disguised earnestness of his, addressed to her a 
word that might have been turned into an expression of love or 
admiration. On the other hand, Tom Valliant was always doing 
so, but in such a manner, with such lightness of heart and such 
merry smiles, that there was nothing either offensive or sincere to 
be understood or seized upon. 

8 


114 


THE PHANTOM FUTUHE. 


In this lay a greater part of the difference. Crozier might in- 
explicably treat her at times as if she might have been a lady; 
Yalliant might bring her flowers and cast comically languishing 
glances over the decanters ; but Syra looked through these out- 
ward manners and saw that she was but a passing incident in 
their lives. She saw, however, more than that. Depraved, lost, 
fallen as she might have been (though we may reserve an opinion 
on this subject — we men who in our wider travels have come 
upon virtue in rocky places), she was a woman still, and a woman 
in something more than the baser instincts that prompted her to 
bring out the daintiness of her cheeks by a touch of rouge, to 
make the most of a perfect figure, and to wield such arms as she 
possessed without quarter or reserve. She looked through the 
veil which, although worn so differently, was of the same texture, 
and what her lifeless, hopeless eyes saw there was the shadow of 
another woman, and illogically, without just cause or reason, she 
had taken the thought into her head that the shadow on both 
lives was cast by one form. 

By way of reply, Crozier shrugged his shoulders. Presently, 
however, he vouchsafed an explanation. 

“ I allowed him to go, Syra, because I could not stop him.” 

“ Indeed ! Because you could not stop him ! Not because 
you are one of the people who habitually let things slide; who, 
rather than find yourself involved in an argument, shut your ears 
placidly to lies and let misery grow up all around you ?” 

The singer rose from his seat and took up his argumentative 
post before the fireplace leisurely, with his back against the cor- 
ner of the iron mantle-piece. 

“ No,” he answered, “ no. As you have done me the honor of 
asking the question, I reply unhesitatingly that it is not because 
I shut my ears and let things slide. Moreover, misery is a growth 
which is quite natural, and, I am informed, even necessary, to the ex- 
isting state of things. I am not interested in its cultivation at all.” 

He allowed her some time to reply, but she continued drying 
and placing upon the counter in an inverted position certain 
small tumblers, without showing any wish to continue the con- 
versation in this channel. 

“ I don’t think, Syra,” he murmured, gravely, and with some 
meaning, “that my eyes are not more often closed than those of 
other people.” 


INTRUDERS. 


115 


She raised her expressionless orbs to meet his and closed her 
lips with a defiant twist to one side. She was not afraid of him, 
and showed it boldly. Before speaking she shook out the damp 
glass-towel and laid it on the coffee-urn to dry, all with a curving 
of roonded arms and curling of pink fingers which was second 
nature to her now. 

“ The atmosphere you breathe and the life you live,” she said, 
with mocking deraureness, “ are hardly calculated to make you 
go about the world with your eyes shut.” 

He looked up to the ceiling as if inhaling the atmosphere of 
the room. 

“ No,” he said, innocently, and with a weight of meaning. 

“ Oh,” she said, lightly, “ I speak for myself as well.” 

“ Which,” he suggested, with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes, 
“ places me in good company.” 

“ I doubt it,” she said, bitterly, and turned away. 

Presently he crossed the little room and took his seat on a high 
mahogany stool near the counter. For some time he smoked 
slowly, examining the quality of bis cigar between each puff. 

“Syra,” he observed, reflectively, at length, “Rome was not 
built in a day.” 

The girl was at the far end of the counter, idly glancing at the 
columns of a newspaper. 

“ So I have been told,” she replied, without looking up. “ But,” 
she added, after a moment, “ I doubt whether it would ever have 
been built at all if — ” 

She broke off with a short, mirthless laugh, and turned the 
newspaper impatiently, afterwards placing both her elbows upon 
the counter and bending low over it. 

“ I was going to be rude,” she exclaimed, abruptly. 

Crozier was looking at her in a speculative manner, his deep- 
sunken eyes very grave and sympathetic. 

“ Syra,” he said, with quiet masterfulness, “ the better I know 
you, the less I understand you — ” 

“ Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she interrupted, “ do not let us dis- 
cuss me! You once told me that it was bad taste, and worse 
than unprofitable to discuss one’s self or one’s feelings with any- 
body whomsoever.” 

“ So I did,” he allowed, with memory as unerring as hers ; “ I 
had no intention of bringing forward the topic you mention, 


116 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


beyond insinuating in the most respectful manner possible that it 
has either been my individual misfortune to do or say something 
which has displeased you, or some event has occurred to worry 
you. If it is the former — ” He stopped, and taking the cigar 
from his lips, threw it neatly into the fire. Then he slid off his 
stool and went to the other end of the bar, where he stood before 
her with his two hands resting on the counter. “ If,” he repeat- 
ed, “ it is the former, without knowing any details, I have no hes- 
itation in saying that the slight, or the offence, was unintentional.” 

She moved nervously and laid her hand upon the paper with- 
out, however, looking up. His tone had quite changed, and the 
alteration afforded her a glimpse of the other man — the man of 
drawing-rooms, the well-bred gentleman, whose place was cer- 
tainly not beside that marble counter. It was a rare glimpse, 
and no one but Samuel Crozier afforded it. She would rather 
have remained in the darkness of her station — rather have list- 
ened to his easy cynicism than the softer tones which fell so 
musically from those trained lips — rather have laughed cheer- 
lessly than have been oppressed by a nauseating lump in her 
throat, which reminded her uncomfortably of the days when she 
could weep. 

“You are not perhaps aware,” she said, while continuing to 
study the advertisement columns closely, “ that people are talking 
about you.” 

He raised his eyebrows indifferently. 

“ What a calamity !” he murmured, with great serenity. “ May 
I inquire what ‘ people’ are pleased to say ?” 

“ It is the common talk of St. Antony’s that Mr. Yalliant is 
going to — ” 

“ Let us say the ‘ dogs,’ ” suggested Crozier, seeing her hesi- 
tation. 

“Yes, the dogs, although that is not quite the expression. 
And your name is frequently brought in.” 

“ As showing him the way ?” asked Crozier. 

She nodded her head, but made no further reply. He tugged 
at his mustache pensively — an action very rare with him. 

“ That is the sort of thing,” he was reflecting, “ that Varden 
will be only too delighted to tell Holdsworth, and Holdsworth 
will be only too delighted to pass it on.” 

Nevertheless, he smiled at Syra’s grave face. 


INTRUDERS. 


117 


“ That cannot be helped,” he said, reassuringly. “ All will be 
put right in time. He is going to leave St. Antony’s at the end 
of the term. Once away from there, it will be an easy matter to 
drop its associations and form more profitable friendships.” 

She saw the semi-grave meaning of the last words, but chose 
to ignore it. 

“ He does not care a bit about any of these men,” she said, 
decisively. “ He associates with them, but they cannot be called 
his friends.” 

“ You have noticed that too, have you ?” said the singer, select- 
ing a second cigar. “ I bow to the correctness of your judgment. 
He will probably go down into the country and stay with his 
people. There he will come under a new influence, and a fresh 
incentive to work.” 

The words were spoken with inimitable unconsciousness. His 
careless attitude as he chose a cigar and closed the case, prepara- 
tory to returning it to his pocket, was that of a man who was not 
giving his whole mind to the subject of which he was talking. 
The choice of a tobacco-leaf was at that moment of paramount 
importance. But Syra’s dull eyes were not taking him in as a 
whole. She disregarded utterly his attitude; and the measured 
indifference of his voice carried no conviction to her ears. Her 
entire attention was given to his lips. During the course of their 
disjointed, half- veiled friendship she had discovered this weak 
point in his worldly armor, and the habit had grown upon her of 
watching the singer’s thoughts, not through his impenetrable 
eyes, not in his strong, manly way of facing joys and sorrows 
squarely, and perhaps too unimpressionably for a young man ; 
but through the motion or the stillness of his trained lips, for it 
must not be forgotten that he was a professional singer. 

“ I am sure,” she said, “I hope it will be the case.” 

“ It is bound to be so,” he answered, reassuringly, but very 
gravely. Then his manner suddenly changed, and at the same 
moment Syra moved restlessly ; and had Crozier looked up he 
would have seen a dull patch of red beneath her eyes which was 
not there a moment before. Both had heard a voice in the outer 
bar wishing Myra a good-evening in unusually quiet and sympa- 
thetic tones. 

“Come, Syra,” said Crozier, a little hurriedly, “this will never 
do ; we are getting quite serious. The future, and especially the 


118 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


future of some one else, is not worth getting serious over. We 
two should know that by this time. I must be off. Good- 
night 1” 

He raised his hat, drew back the curtain, and confronted Wil- 
son Leonard, whose arm was actually stretched out towards the 
heavy folds. 

Crozier nodded, as if the young doctor were a regular habitue , 
and betrayed no surprise whatever as he passed on. 

“ Halloo, Leonard,” he said, genially ; “ how are you ? I’m just 
off to the club to see the Paris papers. Good-night, old fellow !” 


CHAPTER XVII. 
syra’s secret. 

There is a sad want of economy in every-day life. It is like a 
very large book with a small plot and few incidents. We take a 
long time to do very little ; in fact, to use a technical expression, 
there is too much padding. The real incidents, the real crises, 
and the actual successes and failures are of short duration. They 
usually come and go in a few minutes with their attendant emo- 
tions. The pleasure of a great success is after all a passing joy. 
A man succeeds, and lo ! in a few weeks he is accustomed to suc- 
cess — it thrills him no longer — its joy is dead. He longed for 
success: it has come, and yet he is the same man. He gets up 
in the morning, eats, works, and sleeps again, as he did before. 
Eating is no greater pleasure, sleep is no more restful, work is no 
less monotonous. 

Hope and regret are alone long-lived. These two are the pad- 
ding of our lives, the fine writing in the novel which goes on and 
on, from page to page, with a few incidents thrown in here and 
there to break the paragraphs. Hope is all sweetness, and regret 
is bitter sweetness. In excess they clog the taste, just as too 
much fine writing wearies the reader. 

To suit the hurried days in which we live, the novelette has 
been invented. I wish that we might have the power vouchsafed 
to us of reducing the weary volumes of our daily existence. Why 
can we not live lifelettes ? Reduce volume one by beginning at 


SYRA’S SECRET. 


119 


the end of it: id est, at the end of childhood. Scurry through 
volume two and reach the beginning of number three. All the 
incidents could be detailed in a few pages. I could reduce thirty 
years to five, and get into that space all the joys and sorrows, the 
hopes and aspiratious, the successes and the failures, the laughter 
and the tears. No neglect of necessary detail would result, no 
. scamped work. In that time the joys would be thoroughly en- 
joyed ; the sorrows treasured with a certain melancholy pride ; 
the hopes disappointed ; the aspirations crumbled to the ground ; 
the successes realized, and the failures recognized. And all in a 
business-like, ship-shape manner worthy of a most practical and 
estimable generation. 

Poor, dear, slow old Nature is getting sadly behindhand. Her 
system of managing human affairs is effete. She must either 
work in more incident or reduce her detail. We have too much 
getting up and washing and drying, and eating and drinking, and 
going to bed again. When our family Bibles credited us with 
seventeen years we were twenty-five, and instead of making up 
her lost time, Nature gets more and more behindhand as life 
goes on. 

Most assuredly Syra thought such thoughts as these when Wil- 
son Leonard left the little room which was called hers, only half 
an hour after he had drawn aside the curtain to find himself face 
to face with Samuel Crozier. Undoubtedly some reflex of them 
passed through the young doctor’s anxious brain as he hustled his 
way through the crowded humanity of midnight Strand. Half 
an hour — thirty minutes out of all the millions — but thirty con- 
taining more than three thousand. That half-hour left them both 
older ; both wiser, the preacher will say ; both better — who will 
say ? Not I, for one. 

When Crozier left the inner bar Syra turned a pale set face 
towards the new-comer. Why had Wilson Leonard taken to 
frequenting Myra’s again ? 

And so they looked at each other for a brief moment over the 
decanters, across the daintily arranged counter. Dull lifeless eyes 
looking into eyes that were too sympathetic, too kindly for their 
possessor’s happiness in a world .where human sympathy is a 
hinderance. 

Outside, in Myra’s bar, there was the everlasting sound of friz- 
zling chops, sputtering kidneys, and seething steaks, One or 


120 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


two male voices were raised in merry altercation, and there was a 
laugh — a single throaty laugh— occurring with weary regularity 
at short intervals. Crozier, had he heard it, would have said with 
quiet humor that the laughter was supping at somebody else’s ex- 
pense. Years afterwards Leonard heard that laugh again in a 
room full of gayly dressed people, and it brought back to his 
nostrils the sickening odors of cooking meat, damp sawdust, to- , 
bacco smoke, and beer. Before his eyes it raised a picture of 
gaudy bottles rising in tiers to the ceiling, and before them, 
amid them, the most beautiful face he had ever known. It re- 
called the dull eyes, where life and a great hopeless misery were 
struggling for mastery over an indomitable will; and into his 
heart it poured a sudden flood of wretchedness which over- 
whelmed all other feeling, quenched all resistance, and made him 
for a moment no better than a dead man. 

Leonard raised his hat in silent salutation. His lips indeed did 
move, but no words came from them. The girl bowed her head 
slightly and busied herself with some glasses. The silence was 
becoming irksome. 

“ What can I give you ?” she asked, in a business-like tone. 

He looked round almost stupidly, and stooped to examine a 
brilliant label on a whiskey-bottle in a singularly interested man- 
ner. 

“ Oh, I’ll have some coffee, please.” 

She handed the cup in a careless, nonchalant way which was 
not calculated to forward Myra’s commercial interests. 

“You have grown very abstemious,” she said, lightly. 

“ Yes,” he answered, stirring his harmless beverage leisurely. 

“ I have to be more careful nowadays. I need all my steadi- 
ness and all my nerve. They are my stock in trade.” 

Her eyes, resting on him, were almost endowed with life, but 
she soon turned away and went to the end of the counter, where 
she sat down wearily. 

“ I once told you,” he began in a critical way, “ years ago, 
when I was a student, that a couple of years of this work would 
kill you.” 

“ It is three years since you told me that.” 

“Yes?” he murmured, interrogatively. “Three years ago, is 
it?” 

“ And here I am still. I am not to be killed by work, it seems.” 


SYR AS SECRET. 


121 


She spoke in a hard, discouraging voice, as if the subject were 
utterly distasteful ; as if no possible end could be served by dis- 
cussing it. 

“ As I came along just now,” said Dr. Leonard, looking into 
her eyes for the first time since he had come in, “ I was wonder- 
ing why you stayed here.” 

“Ten shillings a week,” she answered, promptly, “and all 
found !” 

It was a splendid farce, but her flippancy was not successful. 
She could not even laugh at it herself. It fell very flat, and there 
was utter misery in the air. 

“ I asked you once before,” continued Leonard, ignoring her 
explanation, “ if you would let me find you some other work — 
something easier and quieter ; and something less — ” he hesitated 
for a word. 

“ Degrading ?” she suggested. 

“ Yes,” he said, looking at her gently, “ degrading.” 

Beneath his gaze the poor girl turned away. He came nearer 
to her, so that only the breadth of the marble counter was be- 
tween them. Standing there with his arms resting on the clear 
space before him where no decanters were, he looked down at 
her where she sat on an inverted mineral-water case. Her face 
was averted, her hands were clasped together. She was almost 
crouching at his feet — crouching gracefully in her close-fitting 
black dress, with the beautiful golden head bent and turned from 
his sorrowful eyes. 

It seemed that at last he had conquered — that at last his stub- 
born manliness had triumphed over her power of will. 

“You have had many opportunities that I know of for better- 
ing your position. Many better places have been offered you. 
You know you are far too good and — and lovely for this sort of 
thing, and yet you stay. It cannot be from love of the work — 
that is impossible. You do not pretend to be devotedly attached 
to Myra. Why do you stay ?” 

She moved restlessly, drawing in one neatly shod foot and 
dropping her arms to her side. 

“Ten shillings a week,” she repeated, “and all found!” 

“ Syra,” he said, gravely — the habit of calling her Syra was still 
with him — “ Syra, for Heaven’s sake don’t copy Tom Yalliant. 
Don’t throw away your life as if you had many to spare. It is 


122 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


the only one you have. Is this ” — he indicated the bar, the bot- 
tles, the smoke-begrimed room — “is this your idea of life? Do, 
for goodness’ sake, think what you are doing.” 

Suddenly she rose and glanced at the clock, in obvious hopes 
that the theatre-goers would soon be coming in. 

“ Oh,” she answered, with an impatient sigh, “ I am thinking 
what I am doing. I have thought about it so much that I am 
sick and weary of the whole business.” 

She turned her back upon him and dusted the bottles with a 
worn feather duster. 

“Then leave this place.” 

Then she threw away the duster and turned upon him sharply, 
resting her two hands upon the counter. 

“ Why ?” she asked, with flushed cheeks and eyes that glowed 
for once. “ Why do you take it upon yourself to dictate to me ?” 

“ Because I love you,” he answered, simply. “ You know that. 

I told you three years ago, and it is the same now as if I had told 
you every day since. Every man has a right to try and do some- 
thing for the woman he loves. Is that not so, Syra?” 

Still she resisted, and in reply to his question merely shrugged 
her shoulders. 

Then he took her hand, pink from constant contact with warm 
water and damp towels, moist from beer-drippings. 

“ Is that not so, Syra ?” he repeated. 

She made no attempt to draw her hand away, but looked at it 
dreamily, as if comparing its pinkness with his white slim fingers. 
No answer to his question came, and presently he continued : 

“ If you will not tell me why you deliberately throw away every 
chance, why you stay here against the advice of everybody who 
takes any interest in you — Crozier, Myra, myself — every one — I 
must simply draw my own conclusions. You stay, Syra, to be 
near some one ! Who is it?” 

She raised her head and looked at him. Her lips were pressed 
upward and sidewise with that pathetic twist ; there was defiance 
in her eyes. 

“You!” she answered, coolly. 

For a moment he ceased to breathe, and when at last he spoke 
there was a break in his voice like a sob. 

“Oh,” he exclaimed, in a low, unsteady tone, “ what a muddle 
we have made of it !” 


SYRA’S SECRET. 


123 


“ No,” she answered, “ we have not. You have made a mistake 
— a terrible mistake — in coming back, that is all.” 

He slowly withdrew his fingers from round hers, and moved 
away a few steps, where he sat wearily down upon one of the high 
mahogany stools near the counter. He leaned his elbow on the 
marble, and pushing his hat onto the back of his head, sat hold- 
ing his forehead in silence for some moments. 

“ Why ?” he asked. “ Why have I made a mistake ?” 

She looked at him for some moments without replying. Had 
he raised his eyes then he would have seen the quivering tears in 
hers. He would have seen the beautiful face transformed to some- 
thing still more beautiful — purer, holier, loftier ; lightened by a 
glow, the pure and glorious illumination of a great unselfish love. 
A dog can love like this, can we — dare you — deny it to a bar- 
maid? How pitifully small is the basis upon which turns the 
axis of a human existence ! Had Leonard raised his eyes he could 
not have withstood the magnetism of her glance; he would have 
asserted his manhood, the rights of his devotion. His greater 
passion would have conquered her noble resistance, and a splendid 
surgeon would have been lost to suffering humanity. As it was, 
he only heard her words, spoken in a coldly modulated monotone. 

“ Surely you must know,” she said, “ that I could never marry 
you. I have seen too much of this — degrading — existence to be 
able ever to settle down into humdrum married life. I am too 
fond of admiration, too much accustomed to it, to live without it 
until — well, until there is nothing left to admire. I should be 
miserable in a year, and so would you. It is only in books that 
such things come right. Misery and nothing but misery could 
ever come of it, and you know it.” 

He shook his head without looking up, but it was a wavering 
denial. He knew it, but what could he do ? 

“ Could things be worse ?” he asked, hopelessly. 

“ Yes, I think so,” she replied, more softly. “ I am sure of it. 
This — this wretchedness cannot go on long. In a few years it 
will be all right. Something may happen — something must hap- 
pen. If we married we should find out the utter folly of it in a 
year, and think of what we should have to face then !” 

Like the proverbial postscript to a woman’s letter, the true 
thought, the inward secret motive of her heart came last. She 
must have been very sure of her power over herself and over 


124 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


the man before her, or she would not have dared to speak the 
words. 

“ Besides,” she added, as she moved a little and pretended to 
be attending to her duties — “ besides, you must think of your 
own family. You must think of your career. It would be ruined. 
The great absorbing desire of your life would be entirely frus- 
trated if you married a — a — ” 

“ Syra,” interrupted Dr. Leonard, “ for God’s sake, don’t be so 
hard upon yourself !” 

“ It is best to look things in the face,” she answered, in a dull 
voice. Then she broke into a sudden laugh which was terrible to 
hear, it was so utterly devoid of mirth, so hopelessly miserable. 

“ In ten years,” she continued, recklessly, “ we will laugh at all 
this.” 

He winced at the sound of her voice, it was so cruelly harsh. 
Perhaps he realized for a moment what a terrible struggle was 
going on behind that laugh, but he never knew the full extent of 
it. He could not. It was an impossibility for him to realize 
what this girl was sacrificing for his sake. She was right— rof 
course she was right — in the principle. They would not have 
been happy together; but who is? Who is entirely happy when 
the glamour fades away? And it is currently supposed that a few 
years’ rejoicing in that glamour are worth the risk of what may 
follow. Soit — so be it ! Let us shrug our shoulders and go on 
our way. We must live and understand it not, grieve and com- 
prehend it not, rejoice and lose the joy. Our lives must be lived 
in a state of semi-blindness, of wishing to see more, to understand 
a little more the point of it all. 

Syra’s had been a joyless life. Beauty had been given her, for 
what ? A great temptation — nothing more. Intellect of a certain 
keen order had been vouchsafed to her, to the furtherance of what 
end? That she might have thoughts above her station, that she 
might dream of better things and realize that they were beyond her 
reach, that she might raise herself from the lower rungs to the 
glorious position of bar-maid in a bohemian drinking den. Think 
of this, my sisters; think of what she was throwing away — and 
tell me why she was born. 

“ Tell me, Syra,” said the young doctor, presently, “ has it al- 
ways been — me ?” 

“ Yes,” she answered, simply, “always.” 


SYRA’S SECRET. 


125 

He rose from his seat and went nearer to her. His soft mourn- 
ful eyes met hers over the arrayed glasses and decanters. 

“ Then you must marry me,” he said, stubbornly, “ and we will 
go away and try our luck in some other country.” 

“ No,” she answered, gently ; “ no, I will never do that. I have 
heard the students talking of you, and Mr. Crozier has told me 
what others say of you. You have a splendid career before you — 
follow it, and — for Heaven’s sake don't come here !” 

But he merely shook his head. 

“ No,” he answered, “I cannot agree to that; I must come 
until you give in or go away. You don’t know what torture it 
is to me, Syra, to think that you are here, a prisoner from morn- 
ing till night, a slave who has to smile upon the first comer and 
do his bidding. It ought not to have lasted so long as this, but 
I never knew — You hid it from me too well. I thought it was 
Tom Valliant.” 

“ No,” she murmured. 

“ Or Crozier ?” almost suspiciously. 

She ceased her occupation of arranging some small Coffee-Cups 
and saucers upon a shelf behind the counter, stopped abruptly, 
and left the task half done. 

“ Oh no,” she said, slowly, reflecting gravely ; “ I admire him 
very much. He is a better man than he himself is aware of, 
which is very rare. It was better, perhaps, that you should have 
thought that I cared for him, because — because it has made you 
what you are. I think we are all the better for having met and 
come under the influence, however slight, of Sam Crozier.” 

She finished with a shadowy, pathetic smile, as if half ashamed 
at the vehemence of her own words, and at the same moment 
there was a sound of mingled voices in the outer bar, accompanied 
by approaching footsteps. 

“ Here they come,” she whispered. 

“ I am sure,” he said, hurriedly, lingering a moment, “ that it 
will all come right in the end.” 

But there was no assurance in his voice, no hope in his eyes. 

“ Why should it ?” she asked, bitterly. “ There is no reason 
why things should come right. It is so much easier for them to 
go wrong.” 

And he turned away from her, passing out of the little room, 
sick at heart, with her hopeless tones still ringing in his ears. 


126 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

FORTUNE SMILES. 

A few mornings later Crozier was placidly disposing of a very 
fair breakfast with the help of a newspaper propped up against 
the coffee-pot, when Tom Valliant appeared. The medical stu- 
dent placed his hat gravely upon the head of a bronze statuette 
which stood upon the mantle-piece, and then sat down on a chair 
which he brought to the table. 

“ Good-morning, Samuel,” he said. Then he raised the covers 
of one or two dishes with quaint anxiety. “The cupboard is 
bare,” he remarked, regretfully. 

“ Yes ; I have cleared things off a little ; but of course you 
have had your breakfast.” 

“That is so,” answered Valliant, as he drew the coffee-pot 
towards him ; “ but nevertheless ” — he raised the lid and sniffed 
the steam that rose — “ I will drink your second cup for you, just 
to demonstrate that our diplomatic relationship is perfectly 
friendly.” 

“ Will you have it in an egg-cup or the slop-basin ?” asked Cro- 
zier, gravely. 

“ Slop-basin, please. Holds more,” replied Valliant. He was 
searching busily in the breast-pocket of his coat, and presently he 
produced a card. 

“ Mrs. Abergeldie Gibb,” he read aloud, with much unction, 
“at home Tuesday, February the twenty - first, from eight to 
twelve. Dancing. R. S. V. P. Samuel Crozier, Esquire.” 

He laid the card aside, made a little bow, accompanied by a 
courteous gesture of the hand, and added, in a congratulatory tone: 

“ There you are, my boy ! What do you think of that?” 

Crozier took up the card and examined it critically, while his 
companion stirred his coffee with a table-spoon. 

“ Are you going?” he asked. 

“That,” answered Valliant, “is precisely what I don’t know. 
There are many questions in that one — wheels within wheels, as 


FORTUNE SMILES. 


12 1 

it were ; notes of interrogation inside notes of interrogation, till 
the perspective is lost in a haze. Sugar, please. First of all, are 
you going? Secondly, is it worth the long journey? Thirdly, 
think of the dissipation of the thing. Eight to twelve — twelve 
o’clock ! Midnight ! Can we stand it ? Are our constitutions 
equal to it ? Toast, please.” 

“ Mine is. Have some butter ?” 

Crozier rose from his seat, and consulted a small diary which 
lay upon the writing-table. As he turned the pages he happened 
to glance round, and found Yalliant’s eyes fixed upon him with a 
certain questioning eagerness. There was no trace of a smile 
upon his face now. 

“ Yes,” the singer continued, after a short search, “I am free 
on Tuesday the twenty-first. I vote we go. What do you say ?” 

“ Oh yes,” answered Tom, carelessly, while he buttered a piece 
of toast. “ Oh yes, we may as well go. I don’t think I should 
have gone alone. I am not such an enthusiastic dancer as you, 
but as you are free, let us go by all means.” 

Crozier closed the book and returned to his seat. He looked 
indifferent, and somewhat dense ; not at all the sort of person to 
be reflecting that Tom Yalliant sometimes overacted his part — a 
little. 

“ By-the-way,” he said, with sudden energy, “ I have some star- 
tling news — so startling that I could hardly eat any breakfast.” 

Tom Valliant again looked under the covers with some anxi- 
ety and a weight of significance. 

“ Let us have it,” he remarked, pleasantly. “ I am strong ; tejl 
me everything.” 

The singer selected a blue envelope from among his letters, 
which lay, methodically folded and replaced within their covers, 
upon the breakfast-table. 

“ I have had a singularly friendly letter,” he said, sarcastically, 
“ from a firm of solicitors whose name I have never heard of, to 
tell me that my mother’s brother has been removed — no — I beg 
your pardon — has passed away. They call him my dear uncle, 
but I have always understood that he was rather a disagreeable 
old gentleman. However, I am of a different opinion now ; this 
letter has opened my eyes to his true worth. He has not only 
left me a quantity of family plate, but certain moneys duly in- 
vested as per schedule, yielding an annual income of — where is 


128 THE phantom future. 

it ? — of two thousand one hundred and seven pounds ten shillings 
and fourpence.” 

Valliant whistled softly. 

“ What an uncle,” he murmured, sadly — “ what an uncle for a 
fellow to have ! Shake hands, Sam, shake hands ! It shall never 
he said that Thomas Yalliant forsook an old friend because he 
was in altered circumstances, never !” 

The singer shook hands gravely, and returned to the perusal 
of the blue letter. 

“ One sugar-basin,” he read aloud, “ one cream-jug, twelve large 
forks, twelve small forks, six table-spoons, twelve teaspoons, and 
a soup-ladle.” 

Yalliant nodded his head at each item, as if to impress them 
upon his memory, and when his companion folded the letter with 
an air of extreme satisfaction, which was very cynical and some- 
what ungrateful, he looked grave. 

“ Well, then,” he said, “ you are lost. The coming season will 
see you drawn into a vortex of well-dressed vice and fashionable 
wickedness — vide lady-novelists who write from the seclusion of 
Camberwell, where they study their subject over a penny society 
paper. Scheming mothers will quarrel over you, and in the pri- 
vacy of the ladies’ cloak-room will say to their daughters, ‘ Now, 
if that man Samuel Crozier is here — the man with the fuzzy mus- 
tache and the baritone voice — fix him. I know for certain that 
he has, besides what he makes by singing, two thousand one hun- 
dred and seven pounds ten shillings and fourpence ; twelve sugar- 
basins, six cream-jugs, and a soup-ladle.’ ” 

“ But how do you know,” asked the singer, with a smile, “ that 
scheming mothers have not known my brilliant prospects all 
along ? How do you know that I have not been ‘ fixed,’ as you 
gracefully put it, hundreds of times?” 

Tom looked across the table at him with momentary gravity. 

“ Then it is not a surprise ?” he asked. 

“ Not quite,” was the answer ; “ I always knew there was a 
chance of it.” 

“ What a funny fellow you are !” observed Yalliant, musingly, 
after a short pause, during which he had lighted his pipe. “ And 
yon never told me. I might have borrowed no end of money 
from you. If it were not that I am myself rolling in the golden 
rewards of honest toil, I should feel inclined to do so now.” 


FORTUNE SMILES. 


129 


“ It is very good of you to say so,” replied Crozier, pleasantly, 
as he turned over the proof pages of a new song which an enter- 
prising publisher proposed (upon a financial basis) that he should 
sing in public, and allow the fact to be mentioned on the cover. 
After studying the score for some minutes he rose and tried the 
air over with the piano, singing in an undertone while Yalliant 
smoked and watched him. 

“ I suppose,” said the latter, shortly, “ that you will give up 
this sort of thing ?” 

Crozier swung round on the music-stool. 

“What — singing? Not I. Nothing will make me give that 
up.” 

“ Well, then,” urged Yalliant, earnestly, “you will have to take 
a house, and marry one of those eager-looking musical eccentrici- 
ties who always wear spectacles and a pencil, go to oratorios and 
heavy concerts with a bundle of musical scores under their arms, 
and — if report be true — never fail to turn up when Samuel Cro- 
zier is going to sing.” 

The object of this graceful flattery ignored the pleasing suggest- 
ion. He had turned his back upon his companion, and was 
playing the air of his new song softly. 

“ No,” he said, “ I thought of buying a yacht — a yawl, I think. 
I might take the family plate to sea and throw it overboard in a 
gale of wind by way of lightening the vessel and removing the 
responsibility of that soup-ladle from my bachelor shoulders.” 

“There is something in that,” rejoined Yalliant, gravely. 
“ Honestly speaking, Sam, I don’t like that family plate ; it is not 
natural, and it will inevitably lead you into ill-considered matri- 
mony. In my vivid imagination I see you already whispering 
into the ear of some fair and well-seasoned enslaver : ‘ If the de- 
votion of a lifetime, in addition to one cream-jug, one sugar-basin, 
twelve large forks and twelve small dittoes, can do aught towards 
a woman’s happiness, Araminta, they are yours — and there is also 
a soup-ladle!’ The soup-ladle would probably settle the matter.” 

“ I think I would sooner sink the plate in the yawl,” said 
Crozier, with that pleasant smile of his, which somehow never 
waxed into a laugh. 

Had Syra, or some other comparatively speaking (for most of 
us look inward instead of abroad) observant person been in the 
room then, or indeed at any other time when these two men 
9 


130 


The phantom future. 


were together, it is possible that she would have felt a peculiar 
tension in the atmosphere. Old friends as they were, devoted 
friends and upright men, their position towards each other was 
not honest. They were not at their ease, and each showed it un- 
consciously in the way and manner that belonged to his character. 
Tom Valliant with a gayety and lightness of heart which were 
the outcome more of habit than of nature. At times it was ut- 
terly false, devoid of humor, and to an acute listener terribly sad. 
Nature had in her bounty given him a light heart and a cheery 
courage — which is human sunshine ; but one felt that this ever- 
lasting “ badinage,” this subtle fear of gravity, had some mean- 
ing, and the meaning could only be that Fate had chosen to spoil 
Nature’s good work. The light heart was fighting beneath an 
overwhelming weight. 

And Crozier ! The singer was never intended for a humorist. 
He was formed of good and solid material such as can be shaped 
into a brave man, intellectual enough for most purposes, genial 
enough to become a favorite and a true friend, and strong, self- 
reliant, purposeful, sufficiently to win the love of a good woman, 
and never let her regret her choice during all her life. His quiz- 
zical cynicism, which had no real bitterness in it, was the fruit of 
circumstances ; under it he hid such softer qualities and virtues as 
are best concealed from a preying and covetous world. 

It was, therefore, somewhat pathetic to see him (laboring under 
the disadvantage of his greater thoughtfulness) endeavor to keep 
pace with his friend’s lighter vein. 

As a rule, they were excellent companions. They had many 
topics in common, many mutual interests, and all could be dis- 
cussed openly and freely, with one exception. The mention of 
Goldheath brought about that strange tension which was felt by 
both, though each concealed the feeling as well as lay in his power. 
There are some things, I am convinced, which are better left un- 
explained. We talk of the ravelled web of human life which is 
one day to be disentangled, we whisper of mysteries which will 
be cleared up in the Hereafter ; but for my own part, I sincerely 
hope that everything will not be touched upon in that great clear- 
ing up of human mistakes, the final explanation of things that 
are dark and meaningless to us now. I hope that many sleeping 
dogs will be allowed to lie. There are a thousand unexplained 
things in every life which, although they may never be forgotten 


FORTUNE SMILES. 


131 


and may influence the entire existence of several persons, are bet- 
ter left untouched. Among these there is, of course, a large ma- 
jority which might very easily, and some people think, very profit- 
ably, be explained now — from lip to ear, or with pen and paper; 
but such frankness, such honesty, and such idiotic plain-spoken- 
ness would only serve to make our threescore years and ten a 
greater muddle than they already are. 

Reticence is not usually classed among the standard virtues. 
It occupies a somewhat distressing position midway between them 
and the rabble of minor vices. With an adjective before it in 
praise or blame, it can be made to serve as either, but the position 
is ever a false one. It ought originally to have been elected bold- 
ly to the higher place, and much doubtfulness of mind would 
have been spared us, while a clearer line might have been drawn 
between connivance at a mistake and unvarnished falsehood. 

Perhaps reticence has never had its due recognition, because in 
many instances it is a mere habit, with all a habit’s power of grow- 
ing and increasing until it is nature. Samuel Crozier was by 
nature a reticent man ; with Tom Valliant the quality was a habit 
acquired from association with one whom he admired and re- 
spected as he admired and respected no other human being upon 
earth. 

They both felt this dull embarrassment, which was hardly visi- 
ble, but existed, nevertheless, at the mere mention of Goldheath. 
The feeling was less intense, perhaps, with Crozier than with Val- 
liant, because the sailor possessed a greater power of self-control, 
and there is no doubt that the exercise of this power over any 
particular emotion or sense is liable in time to deprive that sense 
of existence ; but his observation was keener, and Valliant’s least 
glance or movement was rarely lost. Thus they had gone on for 
years, without ever approaching nearer to an explanation, and now 
it was too late. The habit had grown too strong, the silence too 
sacred. But, despite what may be said about frankness and plain- 
speaking, I maintain that they were better thus. It was one of 
those instances where the explanation had better never be given, 
for is not a friendship with but one flaw in it superior to one that 
is broken up? Had either of them spoken with a view of dis- 
pelling the cloud that rose at times, things never would have been 
the same again. 

Of most things they talked freely enough, and Valliant was 


132 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


frequently confidential respecting his own affairs; but Goldheath 
and the doings there never came under discussion. When they 
left its broad, hospitable door the subject was by tacit understand- 
ing shelved. Men have this way of doing things more frequently 
than women. Some there are who go through life without ever 
discussing an unsettled point even with father, brother, or dearest 
friend, and the question is never answered with earthly lips, never 
seen with earthly understanding. Crozier never thanked Valliant 
effusively for procuring him directly or indirectly an invitation to 
Goldheath at a time when acceptance was permitted by his en- 
gagements, and Tom expected no such thanks. 

It would have been natural when travelling together from or to 
Goldheath to speak of past or anticipated pleasures there, but no 
such words fell from either of them. There were plenty of other 
subjects possessing mutual interest, and on these they conversed 
with that peculiar tension of which I have spoken until their 
minds were fully occupied by other thoughts, and Goldheath was 
laid aside or forgotten. 

As Valliant rose to go when Mrs. Sanders had with miraculous 
rapidity cleared away the breakfast things, a few words were 
spoken with reference to Mrs. Gibb’s invitation, which they ar- 
ranged to accept separately, while Tom wrote to Mrs. Valliant, 
intimating that they would take advantage of her hospitality ex- 
pressed in a letter received by him. 

“ Of course we will go to Goldheath to dine and sleep ?” said 
Valliant, interrogatively, as he drew on his gloves carefully. 

Crozier was standing before the fire smoking a wooden pipe, 
while his hands were thrust into his pockets. 

“ Yes,” he said, briefly. “ Is it necessary for me to write, or 
will you accept for both ?” 

“ I will write — that will be enough.” 

Valliant moved slowly across the room towards the door. 
Crozier continued smoking and staring into the fire. 

“ G’ morning, Sam,” said the medical student. 

Crozier turned and looked over his shoulder, but Valliant was 
already out of the room, and the door was slowly swinging to on 
its ancient and noiseless hinges. 

“ Good-morning,” he called out. 

Then he walked to the window and stood looking out. Val- 
liant crossed Lime Court without glancing back, and passed 


A SHADOW FORECAST. 


133 


through the narrow door-way leading westward towards the 
Strand. 

“ I thought,” muttered the singer, without taking the pipe 
from his lips, “ in fact I knew' that there was something from — 
Goldheath as soon as he came in !” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A SHADOW FORECAST. 

Syra had in no way exaggerated matters when she told Crozier, 
in her abrupt, neat manner, that the world was pleased to con- 
sider that his influence over Tom Valliant was not exactly bene- 
ficial. But she had put rather a different emphasis upon the 
words, and so altered the meaning into a decided expression of 
condemnation. 

It was not considered in Syra’s world a very disgraceful pro- 
ceeding to go to the bad. So many had done it, and having 
reached that mystic bourne, appeared sufficiently well-to-do and 
quite happy, that there was almost a sense of merit in it. Vice 
most certainly has a subtle fascination for women and very young 
men. All St Antony’s students admired, in a way, the out-at- 
elbows scamps who frequented Myra’s whenever they possessed 
the price of a beverage ; and therefore, when it had been said 
that Tom Valliant was going to the“ dogs,” and that Sam Crozier 
was in no way attempting to stop his career, there was no virtuous 
ring of horror in the remark. 

“ Sam — dear old Sam,” was different from other men. He 
could do things which other men could not do — associate with 
questionable characters without any one thinking the worse of 
him — frequent questionable places without being noticed there. 
Outward influence never moved him. But Valliant was different. 
Unconsciously prominent, he did not possess the happy faculty 
of passing anywhere unnoticed. His escapades were talked of, 
his name freely passed from lip to lip, while no one took the 
trouble to inquire whether Crozier had been there or not. 

When Tom Valliant first came to St. Antony’s it was dis- 
tinctly and openly under the wing of Samuel Crozier, who was 


134 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


known to many of the students, notably to Wilson Leonard and 
other older men, who were studying a special subject without at- 
tending every lecture. Crozier and Valliant had been seen to- 
gether at all times and in all places, with the usual result of asso- 
ciating their names together in men’s minds. Where Crozier 
was, Yalliant might be expected to come, and vice versa. But 
this had not lasted long before the singer deliberately adopted 
another course. He saw that Yalliant’s daily existence was in 
many details a very different life from that of a professional 
singer. The hours of sleeping and waking were for the student 
different from his own. While his own days were leisurely if 
not exactly idle, Tom’s were busy, and the night was required for 
rest. However he looked at it, from whatever side he asked the 
question in his own mind, Crozier recognized the fact that too 
close a friendship with himself was not conducive to the ultimate 
benefit of the young fellow tacitly considered to be under his 
protection. 

He therefore drew back imperceptibly, accepted engagements 
to sing in provincial towns, and eschewed the society of St. 
Antony’s men. In a word, he withdrew his influence, from a 
modest assumption that it was likely to do more harm than good. 
But the old association of the two names held good, and casual 
observers saw no difference. 

About this time a great change came over Tom Valliant, who 
was now in his second term. He suddenly became a leader in- 
stead of being led ; and moreover, he who bad been rather quiet 
and thoughtful was the first among the noisier and gayer of 
St. Antony’s students. 

Crozier noticed this, and concluded that it was the natural re- 
sult of association with men of lighter stamp and a more con- 
genial age than himself. But among these new companions there 
were some whom the singer did not like — such men as Walter 
Vardcn — and when it was too late he endeavored to regain his 
influence over Valliant. However, as previously stated, Valliant 
had in the mean time changed, and the attempt failed signally. 

Thus Samuel Crozier found himself in the painful position of 
being morally responsible in the eyes of the world for the mis- 
doings of a man over whom he could not attempt to exercise in- 
fluence without incurring the risk of losing his friendship. How- 
ever, the singer did not attach much importance to the world’s 


A SHADOW FORECAST. 


135 


opinion, and being himself content that Yalliant was not going to 
the bad, and never would, he merely watched matters from a dis- 
tance, without interfering or thrusting himself forward in any 
way, when he had once discovered that his influence was power- 
less. 

He saw and knew the better side of his friend’s life, while to 
Syra the worst only was presented, and it was therefore only nat- 
ural that she should treat the matter more seriously and upbraid 
the patient singer for his apparent indifference, which she did 
freely and sincerely whenever she had the opportunity. Indeed, 
this was the only subject which was discussed by them with 
gravity. 

Syra’s exhortations did not, however, lead him to deviate from 
the course he had laid out for himself, much as he respected her 
judgment and appreciated her sincerity. 

These two may at times have failed to understand each other, 
but there was on the other hand a singular lack of misunderstand- 
ing. Both recognized the presence in the other of some few 
thoughts and a stray motive or two which were hidden from all ; 
and these both in turn respected. Neither attempted to fathom 
the other; there was too much mutual respect for that, absurd as 
it may seem to you, madam, to apply such a word to a bar-maid. 
Thus Crozier never quite understood Syra’s interest in Tom Yal- 
liant; that it was sincere he never doubted, and that it was with- 
out after-thought he was convinced. Beyond that he knew 
nothing. 

The girl’s words were not entirely lost upon him when she 
told him that his own name was coupled with Valliant’s in a 
manner likely to come to the ears of his family, with the usual 
kindly additions of such imaginations as it might touch in pass- 
ing from mouth to mouth. He had told Elma that his influence 
over Tom was for no good, but she had chosen to disbelieve him. 
If, now, the same opinion came to her from another quarter she 
might be shaken in her disbelief, and this scepticism had been 
very pleasant to the singer. 

One evening, a few days after Syra had spoken, Crozier con- 
ceived the idea that he had neglected Tom Valliant of late. That 
strange mutual embarrassment which arose whenever the topic 
uppermost in both their minds was broached, had not of late de- 
creased, and this perhaps led to a slight mutual avoidance. In 


136 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


fact, the friends were drifting away from each other, as men do 
when a woman’s shadow comes between. There was nothing 
definite, nothing tangible beyond that vague embarrassment, and 
instead of lessening their mutual affection it added to it. It was 
not indifference that caused them to drift apart, but increased af- 
fection and the shadowy forecast of an unavoidable sorrow. 

With these indefinite thoughts struggling for mastery in a 
mind which would not allow itself to think, Samuel Crozier pushed 
his way through the crowd that surrounded the stage-door of a 
great concert-hall, and bent his steps towards Myra’s. The even- 
ing had been a brilliant one, and his clear steady voice had as 
usual proved true to his desire, and quite indefatigable. This was 
no mean point in his singing, that his mellow voice was utterly 
reliable. He never seemed to take a note that caused him the 
least exertion, and he never made a mistake. The rich harmony 
vibrated from his lips over the heads of the audience with a won- 
derful fluency and ease, while to him it was a pleasure in which 
no tricks of art could be detected. 

As a rule, he went straight home when his work was done, or 
at the most called in at a club. Of late he rarely went to Myra’s, 
where his absence was scarcely commented upon. Successful men 
were in the habit of dropping their acquaintance with the little 
meeting-place, which was, as Tom Valliant once remarked, essen- 
tially a depot for “ returned-empties and it was only natural 
that Sam Crozier should follow the universal custom. 

To-night he was going to Myra’s, and he knew that Syra’s words 
were drawing him thither. Tom would be there, and into Tom’s 
life he was determined to force himself again. 

A few yards from the door he met Walter Varden, who was 
hurrying in the opposite direction. 

The medical student stopped short when he saw the singer, and 
recognized him in the yellow light of an open shop-window. 

“ Holloa, Crozier !” he said rather breathlessly. “ Going to 
Myra’s ? They want you there. Hell of a row going on ! A 
couple of German fellows have found their way into the inner 
bar somehow. The men did not like it, of course, and when 
they began making up to Syra things began to look black. Then 
one of them said something to the other about her in German, 
and Valliant flared up. He understood it, it appears, but nobody 
else did. I think there is going to be a scrimmage.” 


A SHADOW FORECAST. 


137 


Crozier moved away a step or two. 

“ So,” be said, in a withering undertone, “ you have discovered 
a convenient engagement elsewhere !” 

He walked rapidly on, and only partially heard Yarden, who 
was left explaining to the lamp-post that he “er — er had to meet 
a fella.” 

As the singer passed through the outer bar, Myra looked into 
his face with a ludicrous mixture of anxiety and bewilderment 
written upon her round features. 

“ Oh, Mr. Crozier,” she exclaimed, asthmatically, “ I don’t know 
what they’re doing inside at all. I’m afraid they’re quarrel- 
ling !” 

Through the folds of the curtain came, however, only the sound 
of one voice — the light tones of Tom Valliant, with an uncom- 
fortably strained ring in its lower pitch. 

“ I’ll count six,” he was saying, “ and at the word six out you 
go ! One — two — ” 

And Crozier drew back the curtain. He took in the whole 
situation at a glance. The two Germans were standing with 
their backs towards him at the top of the two steps, while Tom 
Valliant stood before them pointing towards the curtain. His 
face was not only colorless — it was livid, and there was in his 
dark eyes a steady, cruel glitter. 

“ Three — ” he uttered, harshly, as Crozier passed into the inuer 
room, allowing the curtains to fall together behind him. 

Both the foreigners were bigger men than Valliant, and un- 
doubtedly more powerful. They were hesitating painfully before 
that bloodless face. It was braver to be a coward then ; and to 
their credit it must be recorded that they did not fear the man so 
much as the possible consequences to himself of this wild rage. 
That was the cause of their hesitation whether to go or not. 
Crozier had no time to judge, no moment in which to consider 
whether the foreigners were to blame for an ungentlemanly act 
which warranted Valliant’s indignation, or whether they had 
merely trespassed against the customs of a strange country 
through ignorance or heedlessness, just as we Englishmen tres- 
pass against the customs of every land wherein we travel. 

Without a moment’s hesitation he placed himself between Val- 
liant and the intruders, an action which no other man would have 
dared just then, 


138 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE.' 


“ Out of this !” he said, in a dull, hard tone. “ Out of this at 
once !”• 

Yalliant was grasping the counter with one slim hand, the oth- 
er was pressed to his side as if to quell a sudden pain. He 
stepped forward, and stood side by side with his friend, but said 
no word — made no attempt to interfere. Crozier had taken up 
the quarrel where he had been forced to drop it, without inquiry, 
without a shred of justice perhaps ; but he was content that it 
was Tom Valliant’s quarrel, and took upon himself the responsi- 
bility of carrying it through in his masterly, self-restraining 
fashion. 

There was a half-emptied tankard of beer upon the counter, and 
with his soft fat hand the German pointed to it. 

“ But,” he argued, “ I have not paid for my drink 1” 

“ I will pay for your drink,” replied Crozier, with a short, dis- 
agreeable laugh. “ Out you go !” 

The foreigners both smiled in a sickly way, and he whose 
quarrel it was shrugged his shoulders and stretched out his hands 
towards the tankard, but Crozier was before him. He did not 
hurl the metal cup to the ground, or spill a single drop of its con- 
tents, but he drew it calmly away. 

The German looked quickly round the room. There were 
half a dozen men present who stood idly watching, and into the 
Teutonic mind there entered no gleam of intelligence to explain 
their idleness ; he had no conception of the meaning of the word 
“ fair-play,” and never imagined that a difference in numbers 
would be respected. In his calmer moments this difference had 
restrained him, but now he lost sight of it. 

“ My beer,” he said, doggedly, holding out his hand. “ Give 
me my beer !” 

And there followed a few muttered words in guttural German. 

“ Be careful !” said Crozier, with singular softness. “ I under- 
stand German.” 

The foreigner looked into the stalwart singer’s face, and some- 
thing there drove the color from his cheeks, while his hand 
dropped to his side. 

“ My friend counted as far as three,” continued the Englishman. 
“ I will go on where he left off. Four — ” 

There was no ring of passion in his voice, but its gentleness 
was even less pleasant to listen to. 


A SHADOW FORECAST. 


139 


Then the foreigners shuffled restlessly with their feet, and the 
younger man, who had not hitherto spoken, muttered a few pacific 
words and touched his friend’s sleeve. Before Crozier could sav 
“five” they were gone, and the heavy curtains hung motion- 
less. 

There was for some seconds an awkward stillness in the little 
room, which was ultimately broken by a squarely built middle- 
aged man, who came forward with his hands in his pockets, and 
looked critically at the steps leading down into the outer bar. 
This man was a poet, more or less successful, very lazy, and a 
noted big-game hunter. 

“ That would have been an awkward fall, Sam,” he said, criti- 
cally, “ for Germanicus to go down backward. I saw you meas- 
uring the distance with your eye.” 

Crozier laughed in a constrained manner. 

“Yes,” he said, “beastly place to land on the back of one’s 
head.” 

“ I expect,” said some one in the background, “ that Sam’s 
ocular measurement settled the matter. Deutscher saw the evil 
glance, and thought of his mother.” 

In Syra’s sanctum men laughed easily, and under cover of the 
merriment that followed this graceful sally, the singer met the 
girl’s eyes fixed persistently on his face. Although breathing 
somewhat hurriedly, as could be seen by the rise and fall of her 
close black dress, she was apparently attending to her duties with 
a customary calmness. But when she caught Crozier’s glance a 
momentary gleam of life passed across her face. Her eyes and 
lids said to him quite plainly, 

“ Take him away !” 

"With an almost imperceptible nod he reassured her, but care- 
fully avoided looking towards Tom Valliant, who was sipping his 
weak whiskey -and- water with a faint and slightly embarrassed 
smile. 

“ Syra,” he said aloud, in his usual semi-bantering tone, “ have 
you any of that tepid and opaque coffee for which you are justly 
celebrated at this time of night ? because I should like some.” 

She tossed her head with mechanical sauciness and an appro- 
priate smile, as she drew the desired beverage, clear and brown 
and hot, from the urn. 

“ Some people,” she said, as she handed him the cup, and 


140 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


pushed sugar-basin and cream-jug towards him noiselessly, neatly, 
rapidly, “ are never satisfied.” 

“No,” chimed in a grave journalist, who, being an Irish Roman 
Catholic, wrote for a Methodist weekly organ. “ No ; I expect 
when Sam is placed among the baritones in the heavenly choir, 
he will complain that his halo is a misfit.” 

“ And,” suggested a star of the comic opera, mischievously, 
with his nose in a long glass which contained nothing more poi- 
sonous than lemon-squash — “ and will refuse the engagement.” 

This was a decided hit for Crozier, and was accordingly well 
received. The laugh was very much against the singer, and he 
smiled with quiet appreciation of the situation. 

And so the conversation went on. Not very brilliant, you will 
say ; not worthy of the unquestionable genius possessed by some 
of the speakers ; not such as a man like Samuel Crozier — who 
possessed the elements of good somewhere hidden in his being — 
should take part in. Perhaps even, you opine, that it is not 
worth my while to write, and yours to read. 

But what is the picture you have in your mind’s eye — if you 
are troubling to think of these printed lines at all ? A little bar- 
room, flaring gas, and dissolute faces seen through a noxious haze 
of tobacco smoke. One beautiful face (if you will please allow 
it) painted and rendered horrible by the touch of art ; idle, arti- 
ficial conversation falling from the lips of men endowed with tal- 
ents and even genius above the common ruck ; talk that is totally 
unworthy of them ; doubtful jokes upon matters too high and too 
holy for the touch of ridicule ; coarse personalities ; vulgar allu- 
sions to sacred thoughts and things. Yes, such is the picture; 
such the surface of the canvas ! But there may be a perspective 
worthy of further note. There may be good work in an evil 
thing. 

What if these men were talking nonsense with an object? 
What if the dissolute minds were aiding each other in an act of 
human kindness ? Think you that because Syra’s eyelids were 
gently touched with black pencil, the eyes beneath were blind to 
the sufferings of her fellow-creatures — blind to all save her own 
immediate gain? If you think that — if you think it of any hu- 
man eyes — I can teach you nothing, though my years may treble 
yours. But some there are who will see a motive in Syra’s im- 
pertinent words when she handed Crozier his coffee. Some will 


DIPLOMACY. 


141 


detect a quick grasp and furtherance of that object in the Roman 
Catholic journalist’s profane pleasantry — for he was almost a 
bigot; and a further clever aid in the burlesque actor’s hit at 
Crozier, for he labored under an exaggerated sense of gratitude 
towards the singer, who had helped him upward by a timely rec- 
ommendation. 

Nor was the object difficult to reach. Near the counter Tom 
Valliant stood white and dazed. At times he sipped his whiskey- 
and-water in a peculiar, slow way ; waiting after each mouthful, 
as if it were a question whether he could swallow it or not. He 
was breathing hard, and his left hand was still pressed to his side. 

And so they laughed and talked nonsense, heeding him not 
until he was partially recovered, when Crozier announced his in- 
tention of moving homeward, as he was tired out. 

“ Coming, Tom ?” he inquired, casually. “ Come and have a 
pipe in my rooms.” 

And he waited, so that Valliant could not but accept. As they 
passed through the curtained door-way together, Crozier took his 
companion’s arm in a friendly, affectionate way, which they all 
knew was quite unlike his reserved habit. 


CHAPTER XX. 

DIPLOMACY. 

Neither spoke for some time — not, indeed, until they bad left 
the noisy region of the Strand. Then Tom broke the silence. 
He had evidently noticed his companion’s sudden display of affec- 
tion, which had taken the form of linked arms. 

“ I hope, old fellow,” he said, lightly, “ that you are not under 
the impression that I am screwed.” 

If Crozier laughed there was no sound in his laughter ; but the 
tone of his voice when he replied was such as would have led one 
to the belief that he was smiling — no doubt at the absurdity of 
his friend’s notion. 

“No; I should say you were as sober as a judge. There is no 
visible tendency to poor steering.” 

No other words passed between them before they reached 


142 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


Lime Court. Crozier opened the door with his latch-key. Val- 
liant went in first, and having climbed the stairs slowly, passed 
into the sitting-room before his friend, turning up the gas and 
throwing his hat onto the piano, while the singer followed and 
closed the door — just as they had done hundreds of times before. 

“Whiskey — water — biscuits — baccy,” said the host, with mon- 
osyllabic hospitality, as he placed the articles mentioned upon the 
table. 

There were half a dozen unopened letters upon the writing- 
table near the window, and these Crozier took up and brought 
forward beneath the gas. Then he proceeded to open them with- 
out anticipation or curiosity, as one learns to open business letters. 

Presently Tom, who had been thoughtfully munching biscuit 
after biscuit, looked up with his sunny smile. 

“ That German deserved chucking out,” he said, tentatively. 

Crozier was reading a letter, with a slight contraction of the 
eyelids amounting almost to a frown, and he looked down over 
the paper without relaxing his features. 

“ Um — eh ? Oh yes — he deserved chucking out.” 

“Because,” continued Tom, without appearing to notice his 
friend’s absence of mind — “ because he was sober. Had he been 
half-seas over I would have forgiven him.” 

Crozier agreed vaguely in an unintelligible monosyllable, and 
turned towards the writing-table, where he opened his small diary 
of engagements. Clearly he did not wish to discuss the incident 
of Syra’s sanctum ; the subject had no interest for him, and he was 
nervously desirous that Tom should forget about it as soon as 
possible. 

He came forward again into the middle of the room, with the 
letter still in his hand. 

“ Here is a piece of bad-luck,” he said, with singularly little 
sign of regret or disappointment in his voice. “An afternoon 
concert on the day of Mrs. Gibb’s dance.” 

Valliant looked up sharply. Then he shrugged his shoulders 
and took a bit of biscuit. 

“ Oh, hang the afternoon concert!” 

“ I cannot hang it, my boy,” said Crozier, with a smile. “ I must 
go and raise my angel voice — by special request of Royalty !” 

“ By special request — ” exclaimed Tom, neatly catching the let- 
ter which his companion threw towards him. “ Oh, lor — Royal- 


diplomacy. 


143 


ty ! I think I should like to go home at once. You are getting 
too great a swell altogether for me, Sam.” 

Crozier stood with his hands in his pockets, thinking deeply, 
while his companion read the letter. 

“Yes,” said Tom, after a moment’s silence, “your little hash is 
settled — to use a vulgar but expressive simile. You will have to 
sing or flee the country.” 

Then the result of Crozier’s meditations came forth. 

“ I will tell you what I will do,” he said, practically. “ I will 
sing my song, and then bolt for Waterloo in time for that train 
we went down by once — the five something — which gets down 
in time for dinner at seven. I will be dressed, so that I shall bo 
ready for anything. You will go down earlier?” 

Tom moved in the deep arm-chair and crossed his legs. He 
had quite recovered his usual faint pink color now, and was smil- 
ing meditatively. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ that will do. If — bien entendu — you think 
it worth your while.” 

Crozier yawned. 

“ Oh yes ” — politely — “ of course it is worth my while. I sup- 
pose we need not come up by a very early train the next morn- 
ing. Will you go down on the day of the dance, or sooner still? 
I should, if I were you. It is ridiculous troubling about St. 
Antony’s ; you will never be a doctor.” 

Tom laughed in his silent, infectious way. 

“ Not if I am aware of the fact,” he confessed, in a low tone. 

“ Then why attend those beastly lectures ? Why learn a lot of 
things which are not only useless but unpleasant, and can do you 
nothing but harm ? Surely there is nothing to be gained by in- 
vestigating human misery, and it ought not to be an amusement 
for any man.” 

Valliant laughed in his most flippant and aggravating way, 
but made no reply. 

“ It would be much better for you to get out of all this,” con- 
tinued Crozier, unabashed and quite undaunted by his companion’s 
merriment. “ What is the good of your frittering away your 
time between St. Antony’s and Myra’s, doing absolutely no good? 
You ought to be down in the country living a quiet, healthy life, 
and drawing from morning till night, out-of-doors if possible.” 

Yalliant was still smiling, but there was a little unsteadiness in 


144 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


his lower lip — so trifling that his companion did not notice it. 
He remained silent. 

“ It is not only from that point of view that the fact is evident 
that you should get out of this. Myra’s is not what it used to 
be, Tom. The ragamuffin element is on the increase, and the 
medical on the wane. The best men from St. Antony’s don’t go 
there now. It does a fellow’s reputation no good to be known 
as an habitue .” 

“ Does that matter ?” — unsteadily, with a touch of bitterness. 

“ Yes,” answered the singer, very gravely. “ It does. It mat- 
ters very much.” 

His pipe vras in his mouth, but the tobacco was not lighted. 
From his pocket he drew a small silver match-box, and shook it 
tentatively, only to find it empty. Then he went to the mantle- 
piece, where a larger box stood always full. Slowly he proceeded 
to fill the smaller one with great deliberation, dropping each match 
in separately. As he did this he spoke in an even, speculative 
voice. 

“I have always thought that a man’s reputation is a thing 
which he should keep clean and bright for the edification of his 
women-folk. It matters to you, Tom, what people say and think, 
because — ” He broke off in order to light his pipe, and appar- 
ently forgot to complete the sentence. “ For me it is different,” 
he added, as he threw the match away. 

“ I suppose,” murmured Tom, by way of filling up an awkward 
silence, “ that it will be all the same a hundred years hence.” 

“ No,” corrected Crozier at once, “ that is precisely what it will 
not be. It will be quite different. There again is a distinction 
between us. I have a certain power now over people ; I can 
make them pay seven-and-sixpence for a stall in St. James’s Hall, 
or the Albert Hall ; I can even make them shed a furtive tear 
when they are in the stall ; but in a hundred years there will be 
absolutely nothing left — no shred of memory. An old song here 
and there, brown and musty, will record that it was sung by 
Crozier ; and some one idly turning the forgotten music will per- 
haps wonder for a moment who Crozier was and how he sang. 
But with you it is quite another matter. If you choose, you can 
be a living, speaking individuality to generations not yet born. 
Your drawings can teach them to understand the poetry of an 
age which has faded from living memory.” 


DIPLOMACY. 


145 


“ But,” suggested Tom, half seriously, “ I don’t care a hang for 
generations yet unborn. I am afraid that I am not thinking of 
them.” 

Crozier looked down at him quietly. He was standing in his 
favorite position on. the hearth-rug, with his shoulder against the 
corner of the mantle-piece and his hands in his pockets. 

“ No more am I,” he said, gently ; “ no more am I, Tom ! I 
am thinking of you.” 

Yalliant looked up quickly and almost furtively. It was the 
glance of a man who, possessing a secret, fears that it has long 
been discovered ; but Crozier’s smile reassured him. 

“ Yes,” he said, wearily, “ I know you are, old man. There 
must be many more profitable subjects to think about.” 

He rose and took his hat, turning towards his friend with a 
sunny smile. 

“ Come,” he said, lightly, “ we are getting serious, which will 
never do. It suits neither of us. I cannot do it at all, and when 
you try you only become dull and uninteresting. I am desper- 
ately sleepy, and so will make a graceful exit.” 

Crozier did not move, so Valliant crossed the room towards 
him, holding out his hand. 

“ Good-night, Sam.” 

“ Good-night !” 

Crozier allowed him to go as far as the door before he spoke. 
Then he raised his voice a little, and the words fell very clearly 
from his lips. 

“If you should go down earlier to Goldheath,” he suggested, 
“I can bring any flowers, or things you may require.” 

“Flowers? Oh yes! Yes, you might do that, Sam — if it is 
not giving you too much trouble. I had forgotten about flowers, 
though of course they have them down there, but not the proper 
sort.” 

“ Stephanotis, I suppose,” murmured Crozier, between puffs of 
smoke, “ and perhaps some white lilac.” 

Tom was standing just outside the door beneath a gas-jet. He 
was very pale, and there were dark rims round his weary eyes. 
He pushed his hat onto the back of his head and stretched him- 
self in an unnatural way, passing his hand across his brow. 

“ Are those her — the proper thing for such an occasion ?” he 
inquired, with a faint suggestion of humorous sarcasm. 

10 


146 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ I should think so,” answered the singer, with untruthful 
doubt. 

“Eight. I should be much obliged if you would bring them 
down ; but don’t trouble too much about it.” 

“ Oh, no trouble,” said Crozier, indifferently. 

With a little nod Tom continued his way down-stairs, and 
presently banged the front door behind him. 

The singer still leaned against the mantle-piece and smoked 
placidly. He was particularly wide awake, and evidently had no 
intention of going to bed for some time. So far was this inten- 
tion from his thoughts that he presently brought writing materials, 
and laid them upon the table in the centre of the room, sitting 
down before them with leisurely energy. All the while he hummed 
a tune beneath his breath. There were many letters before him, 
and these he proceeded to investigate for a second time with me- 
thodical precision, his small diary open before him. The royal 
concert was duly noted, and the letter laid aside for reply the next 
morning. Many other letters were treated in a similar manner — 
most of them being barefaced impositions, practised under the 
cloak of charity, upon his good-nature. 

At last he came to a note written in a spidery hand upon black- 
edged paper. There was something singularly suggestive of the 
lodging-house-keeper about this communication. The post-mark 
on the envelope was Bristol. Crozier read it through slowly, and 
placed it in his breast-pocket. 

“ So Holdsworth is free,” he said to himself, “ and I am richer 
by seventy pounds a year. She has got away from him at last ; 
but I shall not tell him until I go down to Goldheath.” 

Then he turned to a batch of advertisements, mostly from ship- 
chandlers, riggers, and provision merchants in and about Cowes. 
These disposed of, he drew the writing-case towards him, and for 
the first time in his life wrote the words, “ Dear Elma,” at the 
head of a sheet of note-paper. The ink slowly dried on his pen 
while he contemplated them, but he was lost in no sentimental 
dreams. He was merely wondering whether he should be weakly 
scrupulous, which would be dangerous, or boldly diplomatic. He 
reflected that Elma was always the first down in the morning, and 
the letters were placed upon the plates of those persons to whom 
they were addressed. It was marvellous how well versed he was 
in the movements and habits of the Valliant household. It was 


diplomacy. 


147 


therefore a very easy matter to get a letter into Elma’s hands 
without the knowledge of her parents. Bold diplomacy was there- 
fore his wisest method. If the letter got into other hands no act- 
ual harm would follow, but he preferred that Elma should alone be 
aware of its contents, and the rest must be left to her womanly wit. 

“ Can yon,” he wrote, “ without allowing your name or mine 
to appear, arrange that Tom be invited to go and stay at Gold- 
heath for a few days, until the Vicarage dance ? Let the letter be 
from your mother, and the sooner he receives it the better. If 
possible, let this note be destroyed, and forgotten at once. I have 
good reasons for writing it, but must ask you to trust me until 
to-day week, when I hope to go to Goldheath.” 

He ceased writing, dried the letter carefully with a sheet of 
blotting-paper, and sat, pen in hand, thinking. 

“If,” he reflected, “this gets into the old lady’s hands the 
whole affair will be muddled, and I shall be forced to tell her 
more than I want to, or let her think more than she ought to. 
But I must risk that — I must also risk whatever Elma may think 
of me. She is the only person who can help me with Tom now. 
The fact that I am doing it for Tom’s good may occur to her, 
and that will be all she wants, I think.” 

He added the words, “ Yours very truly,” and signed his full 
name formally. 

Then he took another sheet of paper and wrote quickly : 

“Dear Leonard, — See Tom Valliant to-morrow if you can 
without awakening his suspicions. Don’t let him know that you 
have heard from me. He got into a row to-night at Myra’s, and 
I would have given thirty pounds to have had you there. Of 
course I am utterly ignorant from a medical point of view ; but 
it seems to me that he had a close shave of something or other. 
He does not know that I noticed anything. I brought him here 
for a smoke, and he has just gone to Craven Street apparently per- 
fectly well, but I am rather uneasy about him. Am trying to 
arrange sub rosa that he gets away into the country. 

“ Yours, Sam Crozier.” 

The singer folded the letter, and addressed it to Dr. Leonard, at 
St. Antony’s, and before going to bed he went down-stairs and 
dropped both communications into the old pillar-box let into the 
wall of No. 11 Lime Court. 


148 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE PLOT. 

Elma was exceptionally punctual the next morning, but the 
squire was before her. 

When she entered the little library she found her father stand- 
ing at the window contemplating the Walled Garden, where the 
white-frost lay in parts. After placing her morning salutation 
airily upon his white mustache, she turned to the breakfast-table 
with an eye upon the coffee-pot. Then she perceived that there 
were three letters upon her plate. 

“Ah,” she said, in a pleased voice, “ letters. Letters for me!” 

The squire glanced over his shoulder with an affectionate smile 
upon his ruddy face, but Elma’s back was turned towards him, 
and so she lost it. Her averted face was quite grave, and she 
was holding one letter in her hand, reading the address in a curi- 
ous, still way ; the others lay unheeded on the table. Presently 
she slipped the letter into her pocket and opened the other two 
energetically with the prong of a fork. While she read them the 
squire stood by the window whistling softly to himself the air of 
an old hunting song, of which the memory had been awakened 
by the sunny morning, still air, and harmless white-frost, which 
would presently melt away, leaving the ground quite soft. 

After a little while she placed the dishes within the fender. 

“ Mother is very late this morning,” she observed, sugges- 
tively. 

“ Yes,” answered the old gentleman, replying to the unasked 
question in her voice, “she was not nearly ready when I came 
down.” 

Elma came and stood beside her father in the full light of the 
window — a cheery, bright little maiden, straight as an arrow, ab- 
surdly young in figure and expression. 

“ Will you drive with me to the meet to-day or ride ?” she 
asked, divining in which direction lay her father’s thoughts. 


THE PLOT. 


149 


“ I must ride to-day,” was the reply, uttered merrily, with palms 
slowly rubbed together; “I must ride to-day, little woman.” 

“But no breaking away,” she said, warningly, with a smile 
upon her parted lips ; “ no profanity, and following the hounds 
when you promised not to.” 

The squire laughed and chuckled with great enjoyment. It 
was a known fact in the country-side that if the hounds found 
while the squire was on horseback within sound, he would begin 
by swearing in a round old-fashioned way at the infirmities of 
age, and finish by following almost as straight as in his younger 
days. 

Elma knew that she never had him safely unless he was in the 
carriage beside her, and she was fully aware that the old sports- 
man loved to be reminded of his weakness. 

She laughed a little in concert, and then turning slowly, she 
left the room without saying another word. Crossing the hall, 
she entered the dining-room with one hand in the pocket of her 
dress. 

There was no one there. The pale wintry sun shone through 
the tall window and divided the old carpet into squares. The fire 
had not long been lighted, so the wood crackled still, and there 
was a pleasant odor of burning resin in the air. 

There had been a slight frost, and the atmosphere of this large 
room was decidedly chilly, but Elma did not seem to notice it. 
She went to the window, and standing there drew the letter from 
her pocket. There was nothing surreptitious in her manner, no 
desire of concealment, but she had already obeyed one of Sam 
Crozier’s requests without having seen inside the envelope. 

She read the laconic note carefully, and finding that the con- 
tents coincided with her own (alas !) natural instinct, she con- 
cealed the paper in the bosom of her dress in order to insure 
greater safety. This she did somewhat hurriedly because her 
mother was on the stairs; and, with quick — what shall we say? — 
tact, remained motionless while Mrs. Valliant passed the open door. 
Again I must repeat that there was no surreptitiousness in her 
thoughts or movements. A little concealment, a little dissimula- 
tion, and a little falsehood are necessary if human beings wish to 
live together in anything like harmony. This is to be lamented, 
of course, but we cannot help it. 

Elma Valliant was inconsistent in her blind obedience and bold 


150 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


disregard, shown in the same moment. Without comment she 
recognized that the fact of her having received a letter from the 
singer was to be suppressed, merely of course because he said so, 
because it would assist him in some scheme of which she knew 
absolutely nothing! Ah, that instinct of concealment, how beau- 
tifully naive it is ! But she chose to disregard his practical sug- 
gestion, that their object would be insured and aided by the de- 
struction of the letter without delay. Of course it would. There 
could be no two opinions upon the matter ; and how like a man 
to suggest such an obvious necessity to a woman ! Again, how 
like a woman to ignore the suggestion, and run a greater risk for 
no visible satisfaction ! Elma smiled as she read Sam’s warning 
words. Clumsy, blind old Sam ! Surely he might have guessed 
that she knew much more about such small diplomatic matters 
than he. Fancy, my brothers, teaching a woman how to sweetly 
tell and carry out a white lie ! Such a letter as Elma had re- 
ceived must of course be destroyed at once, and its attendant in- 
cidents forgotten. Therefore she thrust it into her dress, button- 
ing up carefully. I offered her five shillings for it only the other 
day, at which she blushed very prettily, and changed the subject 
without delay. The other day ? Did I say the other day ? It 
was about seven years ago. 

Crozier had asked her to trust him until he could explain mat- 
ters with his own lips, and she did so. No question seemed to 
arise within her mind as to whether he was acting prudently and 
for the best. She knew that he had run some risk of miscon- 
struction, and that he had also placed her in a similar position, 
but for this she bore him no ill-will. Indeed, she appeared to 
find some pleasure in sharing the danger, which is always a more 
serious matter for women than for men. She never doubted that 
his action was the wisest possible under circumstances which had 
evidently arisen somewhat suddenly, and in a cheery, confident 
way she undertook to assist him. 

Of course she could manage the task allotted to her, and would 
willingly have had it harder. Such little things are safe in a 
woman’s hands; they can do them so neatly, especially with the 
aid of a pair of innocent eyes and a ready little smile. 

Thinking over these and other subjects. Elma fell into a reverie, 
out of which she was presently awakened by the clink of china 
coming from the library. 


THE PLOT. 


151 


She crossed the room and stood in front of the fireplace. 
There she tore up the envelope which Sam had dropped into the 
pillar-box in Lime Court the night before, and threw the pieces 
onto the burning coals, where they were soon consumed. 

“ He is so stupid !” she whispered to the flames, with a very 
soft gleam in her eyes. “I should like to write back to him a 
long letter, on two sheets, and all I should say would be, ‘ I don’t 
love Tom — I don’t love Tom — I don’t love Tom.’ ” 

******* 

“ It will give so much extra work to the servants,” argued Mrs. 
Valliant, when the squire found that he had actually proposed to 
ask Tom Yalliant down to stay a week or so, including the Vic- 
arage dance. The old gentleman did not exactly know how the 
subject had cropped up, or how it occurred that he should make 
such a daring proposal. We must ask Elma about that. How- 
ever, he bad done it, and his genial spirit of hospitality was 
aroused. Moreover, the prospect of a jolly meet, and the sight of 
a cloudy sky which almost spoke of spring and called a truce on 
hunting, exhilarated him. He was hopelessly genial and exalted 
— required snubbing, in fact, as old gentlemen sometimes do, and 
Mrs. Valliant presently saw to that, because it was strictly within 
her department. 

“It will give so much extra work to the servants,” she said, 
with a half-suppressed sigh of resignation, as if the scullery-maid’s 
work were about to fall upon her shoulders. 

“ I will get up early and polish the grates,” said the squire, 
winking obviously at Elma. There was the sound, even, of a 
wink in his genial voice. 

The woman who had possessed for twenty-five years one of 
the best husbands in England smiled in a chilly, heartless man- 
ner, and shrugged her shoulders. 

“ I think we can manage without that,” she observed, with 
great dignity. 

The squire was irrepressible. It was all owing to that light, 
south-westerly breeze, which has a frivolous way of getting into 
men’s veins. 

“ Oh,” he said, with a chuckle, “ don’t hesitate to make use of 
me. Any trifling service of the description mentioned, you 
know, my. dear, will be a pleasure to me.” 

This daring impertinence would have settled the matter finally 


i 


152 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


had Mrs. Valliant been indifferent respecting Tom’s visit. But 
she was not so. She wanted him to come, for he was dear to 
her, after her manner — the manner of a hard woman who has 
never known the love of a son, which is quite different from that 
of a daughter, inasmuch as it is daring and often arbitrary. And it 
would almost appear that a woman values love in ratio to the great- 
ness of its demands and heartlessness of its subsequent ingratitude. 

“I will write to him this morning,” said Mrs. Valliant, with 
some condescension, and there the matter rested. 

Elma hardly seemed to notice the final decision. She was oc- 
cupied with a collection of crumbs, for which a small feathered 
tribe was patiently waiting outside the window. 

“ I hope,” she reflected, as she tapped the bread-tray with a 
knife, “ that he will be content with my share of this deep scheme. 
But — but I suppose it will only confirm his suspicion that I care 
for Tom.” 

Two days later Tom Valliant arrived at Goldheath. Elma was 
at the station to meet him. She had driven over alone, having 
effected the arrangement with some difficulty. But she was anx- 
ious to see the first of her cousin — anxious, in an indefinite desire 
to speak to him before any one else. She thought that he might 
bring some explanation of Crozier’s unusual action — rendered 
more peculiar by the fact that the singer excelled more in a mas- 
terly stillness than in moving. During the first greeting, how- 
ever, she learned that Tom knew nothing of the letter to which 
he owed his presence in the little pony-cart by her side ; and the 
realization of how much Crozier had left to chance and her own 
quick wit came as a shock at the same time. Once or twice al- 
ready there had been occasions on which it would have been so 
perilously easy to make a mistake. Notably, in the first instance, 
on the receipt of the letter ; in the second, on greeting her cousin 
at the station. 

Nevertheless, Tom Valliant had brought the explanation with 
him. It was written round his eyes, and in the lines that ap- 
peared near his clean-shaven lips when his face was in repose. 
She did not read, but unconsciously touched upon it. 

“ I will not inquire,” she said, merrily, “ what time you went to 
bed last night, or whether you went to bed at all. It may be a 
delicate subject, but your appearance might, in mixed society, 
lead to unpleasant questions,” 


FLOWERS. 


153 


He glanced at her keenly. It was a mere flash of his quick 
eyes, unnoticed by her in the absorption of rounding a sharp 
corner with a home-going pony. Then he laughed. 

“ When a jaded, overworked son of toil comes down from the 
restless city,” he said, with dramatic gravity, “ is it kind to pre- 
sume upon rosy cheeks and a digestion untouched by midnight 
oil — to cast his complexion in his face, so to speak, and to at- 
tribute a becoming pallor to the worst possible causes? Now you 
would not imagine, I suppose, that I attended a Young Men’s 
Christian lecture last night — would you ?” 

“ No,” she answered, severely, “ I should not.” 

He shrugged his shoulders with great resignation. 

“ It is no good,” he said, meekly, “ talking to you, if you be- 
gin by doubting a hitherto spotless veracity.” 

Thus they began, and thus they went on during the few days 
that followed. Both seemed to be under a nervous apprehension 
of some sort. Both were terribly afraid of becoming grave — of 
treating any subject seriously. 

On the surface, however, they were both in excellent spirits, 
and superficial things are often deeper than we reckon. Where 
would human happiness, human merriment, and human laughter 
be without the superficial ? 


CHAPTER XXII. 

FLOWERS. 

By good-fortune Crozier succeeded in carrying out his plans 
for the evening of Mrs. Gibb’s ball at Goldheath. He sang his 
two songs, received his applause with the usual grave bow, and 
rushed off to Waterloo Station in the quickest hansom obtainable. 

There was a slight delay at Covent Garden, where he called 
for some flowers ordered and selected a few hours earlier ; never- 
theless, he caught the train, and at five minutes to seven stood be- 
neath the broad porch of Goldheath Court. From the cold gusty 
night 6e passed into the cheery, thickly carpeted hall, where a fire 
burned ruddily, with many a gleam upon ancient flintlock and 
holster pistol suspended upon the walls, 


154 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


In the centre, near the table, stood Elma, a vision of soft cling- 
ing silks and incomprehensible gauze. She had just run down- 
stairs, swinging gloves and fan in her hand, and was consequently 
breathless. 

“ So you have done it,” she gasped, as she held out her bare 
hand with a smile of welcome. 

“ Yes,” he answered, quickly removing his glove before shaking 
hands. “ I knew I could manage it. There was really plenty of 
time.” 

He laid the flowers on the table previous to removing his thick 
coat, and Elma looked supremely unconscious of their presence. 

“ I hope the flowers are right,” he said, glancing back over his 
shoulder as he turned to hang up his coat and hat. The servant 
had vanished with his bag a moment before. 

Elma took up the odorous informal bouquet which he had 
thrown down somewhat recklessly, and raised it to her face. She 
changed color suddenly, blushing almost painfully. 

“ They — are lovely,” she murmured, unevenly. 

He had come back into the middle of the room and was stand- 
ing before her, looking down at the flowers with a critical wis- 
dom. 

“I suppose white flowers are always safe?” he said with what 
seemed to her forced carelessness. 

“ Yes,” she answered, rather vaguely, as if she had not caught 
the meaning of his words ; “ yes, I should think so.” 

“ I mean that they will go with almost any dress.” 

“ Oh yes — almost any dress.” 

“ I thought so,” he said, earnestly, as if a load had been lifted 
from his mind — as if one of the unanswered questions of his ex- 
istence had found a reply at last. 

He had removed his coat, laid aside his hat, and pulled down 
his waistcoat. There was nothing to detain them any longer in 
the hall, but still they lingered. 

“ Thank you very much — ” she began, but he stopped her by 
laying his hand hurriedly upon her bare arm, pressing harder than 
he was aware of. 

“ They are not from me,” he interrupted, speaking rapidly ; “ I 
brought them for Tom — by Tom’s order, I mean — for him to 
give to you.” 

She half turned away, burying her face among the white flow- 


FLOWERS. 


155 


ers, with a nod signifying that she understood. Then she looked 
up into his face with a quaint little smile. 

“ Thank you very much, then,” she said, “ for bringing them. 

I may thank you, I suppose, for having taken some trouble in the 
matter, although I must express my gratitude to Tom for having 
thought of it.” 

He smiled in response, hut there was a singular expression 
upon his lips which failed to coincide with the perfectly natural 
light in his eyes. 

“ It was no trouble,” he said, indifferently, making at the same 
time a distinct movement towards the drawing-room door. She 
could not but obey his suggestion. 

“I expected that Tom would have told you about the flowers,” 
he said, as he followed her towards the drawing-room, which was 
at the other end of a passage, “ arid my expectation was more or 
less confirmed by the fact that you came down-stairs without 
any.” 

“ I never put my flowers on until the last moment,” she ob- 
served, in a tone of vast experience ; “ otherwise they would be 
dead before the evening was half over.” 

He made no answer, and they passed into the drawing-room in 
silence. 

“ I should like to know,” she reflected, rapidly, “ as a mere 
matter of curiosity, who really thought of it — whose idea it really 
was to bring flowers down from London.” 

“ I wonder,” he meditated, “ whether she has other flowers up- 
stairs, or if she — ” 

Here Mrs. Valliant came forward with out-stretched hand and 
a few formal words of welcome. 

A few moments later Tom appeared, looking very graceful and 
refined in his evening dress. Elma held up the flowers, which , 
she was in the act of placing in a bowl of water in the darkest 
and coolest corner of the drawing-room. 

“These delicate attentions, mon cousin ,” she said, gayly, “are 
overpowering.” 

“ Ah,” he exclaimed, as if he had forgotten all about them, or 
as if the matter were really of small interest — “ ah, vegetables.” 

He crossed the room and sniffed at them. 

“The delicacy of the attention is not the only thing about 
them which will be overpowering before this entertainment is 


156 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


over, I am thinking. How are you, Samuel? Why did you 
bring such smelly ones?” 

“Smelly ones!” echoed Elraa, indignantly; “they are lovely. 
There is nothing so sweet on earth as stephanotis.” 

Tom laughed derisively. 

“Give me,” he said, addressing Crozier, with tragically out- 
stretched arm, “ a flower that has no smell — the humble daisy, the 
azure cornflower, the sustaining cauliflower.” 

“ I am afraid,” answered Crozier, with perfect gravity, “ that I 
have not got one at the moment.” 

Only Tom remained grave. He shrugged his shoulders with a 
great show of disgust. 

“ The man,” he muttered, “has no poetry in him.” And turn- 
ing sharply round, he arranged his tie with the aid of a Venetian 
looking-glass suspended above the mantle-piece. 

“But, Tom,” said Elma, presently, taking up the unfinished 
argument, “ do you mean seriously to say that you prefer flowers 
without smell ?” 

“ I do,” he said. “ There is nothing so depressing as the smell 
of white flowers. Mind, I like it, but it depresses me. It is the 
sentiment of the thing, I am afraid. Were I a school-girl the 
odor of flowers would make me think of the moon, the shimmer- 
ing sea, soft twilight hours, the midnight song of the cucumber 
— the nightingale, I mean — and similar unsatisfactory things. 
Being a man, I am consumed with a great desire to smoke in- 
stead. Perhaps it is a mere matter of past association. I never 
thought of that before. Sam always wears a spray of stephano- 
tis when he can get it, which no doubt accounts for the whole 
business.” 

He laughed and looked towards Crozier. Elma laughed also, 
but chanced to look in exactly the opposite direction. The sing- 
er met his friend’s eyes and smiled obediently. He had been 
talking with Mrs. Valliant, and was without the least knowledge of 
what he was expected to smile at ; but that did not matter much. 

Then the dinner-bell sounded through the house, and-the squire 
came into the room, groaning and holding his back, but smiling 
genially nevertheless. He was a truly hospitable man in the good 
old-fashioned manner ; loved to see strange faces round his table 
— more especially young faces. This evening he was resplendent 
in dress-clothes of an earlier date, with onyx buttons on the 


FLOWERS. 


15*7 

waistcoat, and three honest rubies on his broad and manly breast. 
The groan meant nothing, and in nowise disquieted the ladies. 
They knew that it was only geniality, which usually takes the 
form of a noise of some description, and a painless grunt is pref- 
erable to the aggravating drawing-in of breath through closed 
teeth, which is a more common sign. 

“ Ah,” he exclaimed, holding out his broad brown hand, “ Sam, 
my boy. Glad to see you ! The singer, eh ? The royal minstrel 
— ha, ha, ha ! How did you get on ?” 

“ Splendidly, thanks.” 

“ Congratulate you, my boy, congratulate you ! Only wish 
your good father was here to do the same,” said the old gentle- 
man, squaring his arms, and pulling down his waistcoat with a 
cheery jerk. 

“ He doesn’t look as if he were fresh from the presence of roy- 
alty, does he ?” suggested Tom ; “ except that his hair is a trifle 
ruffled on this side.” 

The singer passed his hand scientifically over his crisply curled 
head. 

“ That,” he answered, readily, “ is where I tore it when the 
cab-horse slid down Wellington Street on its shoulder.” 

“Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the squire, tailing off apoplectically 
into subsidiary chuckles, at the end of which he looked suddenly 
grave, and turned to Crozier. 

“ Must congratulate you also,” he said, in the confidential man- 
ner of a stage aside, “ upon that other matter — the money, eh ? 
Don’t invest it in a dock company. Yon needn’t be afraid of 
horse-flesh, but avoid the turf ; sailors never learn the ropes there.” 

Crozier’s reply was lost in the rustle of Mrs. Yalliant’s silks as 
she moved austerely towards the door. 

“ Elma, my dear,” said the old gentleman, with a preliminary 
groan, “ I am afraid I shall not be able to have that polka with 
you to-night ; my lumbago — ” 

“But you must, papa; I never let my partners off like that. 
Lumbago or no lumbago, once the name is on my programme 
there is no turning back. Besides, I heard you running down- 
stairs just now when we were in the drawing-room.” 

There was a break in the conversation, while all heads were 
solemnly bowed over the table, and the squire’s shirt-front bulged 
audibly. 


158 


THE PHAKTOM future. 


“ Thank God,” observed the old fellow, reverently — the brief- 
est of brief graces, which never failed to make Tom smile. 

“ My dear child,” he continued, in the same breath, with twin- 
kling eyes, “ I am seriously ill. It came on suddenly, with a sort 
of click, when I was twisting round to try and let out the strap 
at the back of my dress — ” 

“Don’t you take soup, Mr. Crozier?” inquired Mrs. Valliant, 
suddenly, with a sharp glance at each of her servants in turn, just 
to see whether their sensitive nerves had been affected, no doubt. 

The squire finished his remark by a comprehensive and very 
evident wink over his soup-spoon. 

Tom Valliant was singularly jolly that evening, and his cheeks 
had a faint pink tinge, not in blotches, but evenly and all over. 
The dark rings round his eyes had vanished. Evidently the quiet 
country life of Goldheath suited him admirably. He was also in 
excellent spirits, and talked almost incessantly, while the squire 
laughed and held his back with both hands. 

It was under the cover of a brilliant sally, at which every one 
laughed, that Elma spoke a few words under her breath, without 
looking towards any one in particular ; indeed, her eyes were low- 
ered to her plate. 

“ I hope,” were the words, “ that you are content with my 
share in the plot.” 

Samuel Crozier was next to her. He glanced in her direction, 
sidewise, along the table-cloth towards her hands, but said noth- 
ing. A few minutes later an opportunity occurred, and he re- 
plied, 

“ I never doubted,” almost in a whisper and ambiguously ; but 
she understood. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

DANGER. 

As Samuel Crozier bowed over Mrs. Gibb’s chubby hand, he 
saw at the other end of the room William Holdsworth. The 
sailor was no dancer, but he invariably accepted invitations, and 
really made himself very useful to his hostess in talking to elderly 
ladies when he could not find a young one without a partner. 


danger. 


159 


Elma’s programme was much in request, and Crozier saw that 
Holdsworth did not ask her to sit out a dance with him. As far 
as he could judge, indeed, he concluded that they did not speak 
to each other, more than a few formal words of greeting, during 
the entire evening. From this he surmised that something had 
taken place — something which saved him from the necessity of 
warning Elma against his old shipmate. 

Presently the two men passed close to each other in a tiny 
room, full of people partaking noisily and merrily of tea and 
coffee. 

“ I want to speak to you,” said Crozier, in an undertone, after 
they had nodded casually as slight acquaintances. 

Holdsworth looked uncomfortable for a second. 

“ Crozier is such an extraordinary fellow,” he reflected, “ for 
hearing confidences. I wonder if Elma has told him.” 

He need have had no such fear. Elma was in her own esti- 
mation singularly capable of taking care of herself. She had an 
entire reliance in her own strength of purpose, hidden, it may be, 
beneath smiles and a certain coquetry, but existing nevertheless, 
and only betrayed by that little square chin and an occasional 
glance of her changeable eyes. In confidences she never indulged, 
and of herself- she rarely talked. There was one person to whom 
she never spoke on matters concerning herself, and that man was 
Samuel Crozier. 

Holdsworth looked keenly into his former officer’s face. The 
old “ quarter-deck ” expression was not there, and the sailor au- 
gured from its absence that there was nothing very disagreeable 
hanging over his unfortunate head. 

“ Will it take long ?” he inquired, audaciously smiling. 

Crozier looked at his programme before replying. 

“ Number seventeen is a schottische,” he said, in a quietly un- 
deniable manner. “ I shall not be dancing it. Will you keep 
yourself free ?” 

“ Yes.” 

Holdsworth moved away, looking grave, while Crozier turned 
to greet an asthmatic old parson who had known his father. The 
sailor again felt a sudden misgiving — a vague sense, as it were, of 
discomfort — as if some new trouble were at hand. But presently 
he threw this off, and became the merriest of the merry. He 
lived for the present to an extraordinary degree, and number one 


160 


THE PflAKTOM FUTURE. 


had just begun ; number seventeen, the schottische, was a long 
way off. 

At times during the evening that disagreeable possibility of 
Crozier’ s having heard of the little scene in a conservatory some 
weeks before suggested itself to the sailor, but he soon dismissed 
it with easy confidence. Tom Valliant’s manner to himself was 
friendly in the extreme, which incident closed the most likely 
channel through which the information might have passed. 

The local dancing men found that Elma’s programme had been 
seriously tampered with before she entered the room — the initials 
“ S. C.” and “ T. V.” occurring alternately in brotherly unity at short 
intervals from top to bottom. Tom Valliant was a very fair dancer, 
but incorrigibly lazy. He never danced from the first bar of the 
music to the last, as did his friend. Twice round, and find a seat, 
was the principle upon which he acted. Elina had long ago 
ceased to draw his attention to the laziness of this proceeding. 
She had divined that, much as he loved and invited chaff, all re- 
marks upon the limits of his endurance as regarded dancing were 
unwelcome. In after-years she looked back with thankfulness upon 
the instinctive feeling which withheld her tongue on this point. 

The feelings of certain young Goldheathans upon the subject of 
London men in general, and two of them in particular, were deep 
and bitter, causing several naissant mustaches to be tugged pug- 
naciously over Elma’s engagement-card; while more than one fal- 
low mind conceived the possibility of Mrs. Valliant’s being a less 
formidable person than was generally supposed. Few of them 
would have dared to dance four times (had the opportunity been 
given them, bien entendu, by the young person most interested) 
with the daughter of the squire’s wife. 

Sam Crozier used to say in his quizzical self-abuse that he was 
an old stager — a supper bachelor — and his friends believed or 
disbelieved him as they liked. He had only four dances with 
Elma scribbled on her engagement-card hastily, but they were the 
four best waltzes there. Thus, the first was immediately before 
the Lancers, which he knew Elma would not dance, and by this 
simple device he secured an opportunity of giving her the expla- 
nation he knew, by the glance of her eyes, she was awaiting. 

They danced the waltz without speaking many words. Crozier 
never talked much once the music had begun, and they knew each 
other well enough to ignore the politer usages of society. As 


DANGER. 


161 


the music slackened with chordal signs of a finale , Elma made a 
tiny movement which he detected at once. It was the almost un- 
conscious signal of a wish to stop and get away before the crowd. 
They both knew the house well. Elma had run about, up-stairs 
and down-stairs, since she could run at all, while Crozier was born 
in the large room above the drawing-room. 

And so he led her up the broad, shallow steps with her fingers 
resting on his arm, as he had led her, hand in hand, twenty years 
before. There was a broad alcove at the head of the stairs, and 
here they found a sofa. As they seated themselves a sudden rush 
of voices in the hall beneath told of a breathless multitude seek- 
ing rest. The dance was over. 

Crozier began at once in his usual straightforward way. 

“ I wrote to you,” he said, “ because I wanted to get Tom away 
from London. He was regularly out of sorts — required a change, 
you understand.” 

“ And so you thought of Goldheath ?” 

“ And so I thought of Goldheath,” he replied, absently, for he 
was striving to reach the meaning of her tone, which was not 
quite natural. There was a subtle significance in it which he 
failed to catch. 

“ Where else could he — or rather would he — have gone ?” said 
the singer, still striving to divine her thoughts. 

She turned towards him with a bright and amused smile. 

“ Nowhere, of course,” she replied. 

Nevertheless, Crozier conceived the strange idea that Tom Val- 
liant’s visit had for some reason been distasteful to Elma. He 
could not be expected to read a woman’s whim. The true reason 
of her slight displeasure lay so deeply hidden from his eyes, and 
he was so utterly devoid of vanity, that he never suspected what 
it was, until the knowledge was forced upon him later. 

“ I hope,” he said, “ that it was not inconvenient, but I was 
really frightened for the moment. Tom is not strong, and the 
life he leads in town is not such as he ought to lead. I was 
scared by the thought (suddenly thrust upon me by some one 
else), that I was more or less responsible. Perhaps I lost my 
head a little, for I was alone, and it was late at night.” 

Elma laughed suddenly in a peculiar, impatient way. 

“ It would be so like you to lose your head,” she said, sarcas- 
tically, “ would it not ?” 

11 


162 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


His deep-set eyes rested for a moment on her pure profile. 
She was looking straight in front of her, with her two hands rest- 
ing upon her lap. Her lips were slightly apart, and the expression 
of her face seemed to demand an answer to the question just 
asked. 

“Perhaps,” he suggested, with semi -comic apology, “it re- 
quires more than I possess.” 

“ I should think it does,” she said, in a bantering tone. Then 
she added, quite seriously, “It is very good of you to interest 
yourself so much in Tom. We were very glad to see him.” 

The extreme conventionality of her remark conveyed to him 
exactly the opposite meaning to that which she intended. He 
thought that it was assumed, whereas it was very natural. 

“ He is much better for the change ; I see a great improvement 
in his appearance,” he observed, carelessly, while he attempted to 
introduce the upper button of his glove into its hole. 

“Yes,” she answered, “I think he is better. Goldheath has 
done him good.” 

He deliberately turned and looked into her face. She bore the 
scrutiny without changing countenance, but her eyes were a trifle 
fixed in their expression, while her chin was thrust forward. It 
was a wonderful thing how well he knew her. 

“ Elma,” he said, in a voice of which the softness would have 
made his fortune upon the stage, had he not found a better use 
for it ; “ Elma, I am afraid I am an old muddler. I have done 
something stupid. Do you not know me well enough to tell me 
what it is ? Surely it is enough to say that we clambered together 
onto this same sofa twenty years ago. We ran about in these 
same old passages hand in hand, and there was nothing between 
us then. Did my letter come inopportunely, or has it vexed you ? 
Or do you think that I should have minded my business, and al- 
lowed Tom to manage his, or mismanage it, as he thought fit?” 

“ No,” she protested, “ I thought nothing of that sort. I was 
glad to get your letter, and no one has seen it — no one saw it — 
but myself.” 

“Then you did not want Tom at Goldheath just now? I 
forced him upon you at a wrong time.” 

“ Not at all. No — but — ” 

She stopped with a little awkward laugh. She was slowly 
twining and intertwining her gloved fingers, and she swayed a lit- 


DANGER. 


163 


tie away from him as if to get farther from a proximitive influ- 
ence which was becoming too strong for her. 

“ But — what ?” he asked, in a measured voice, which seemed to 
be the result of some effort over himself. 

There was a pause of some moments. The Lancers were in 
full swing down-stairs, so that the upper part of the house was 
theirs alone. The music was almost overwhelmed by the shuffling 
of feet and the buzz of merrily raised voices. 

“Oh, nothing,” she said, suddenly throwing herself back in 
the seat, and looking at him with a determined little smile full of 
defiance. 

“ That is right,” he said, calmly, “ don’t tell me. It is much 
better not. There is nothing that one regrets sooner, and more, 
than unwilling confidences. There are so many things which are 
better left untold. This is one of them, no doubt. Some day 
yon will abuse me for having been weak for a moment. I should 
not have tried to make you tell me.” 

He spoke rapidly and with evident relief, as if some hidden 
danger had just been averted. But he could not divert his thoughts 
at once from the question, and sought to excuse himself for the 
blunder which he knew nothing of. 

“I cannot always understand Tom,” he said, tentatively, “ he 
is so variable. At times he is quite serious and amenable to rea- 
son, and suddenly he will change — laughs at everything, and is 
apparently perfectly reckless of consequences.” 

“ You mean,” she suggested, “ that he does not dream of mis- 
construction or deliberate misconception. He never thinks that 
people may either heedlessly or purposely put his actions in such 
a light as to render their appearance much worse than it should 
be.” 

Crozier knew now that she had heard something of what Syra 
had reported as the current gossip of St. Antony’s. It was easy 
enough to trace this, in imagination, from Walter Varden to Holds- 
worth, and from Holdsworth, either directly or indirectly, to Elma. 
The story would most assuredly not have lost weight in trans- 
mission, so he faced it squarely, as was his wont. 

“ You must not,” he said, “ on that very account believe all that 
you hear. People are so apt to add a few graphic touches to 
stories that pass through their hands. In this matter, Elma, you 
must believe me before any one else — you have no other course 


164 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


but this. Tom is as good and upright and as true a gentleman 
as any man in this house. Some people are beyoncf the influence 
of association, and I think he is one of them. He can associate 
with — shady characters, let us call them, and never be the worse 
for it. But what I do not understand is why he does it. These 
men are no companions for him. I am certain he despises them, 
and yet he deliberately chooses them for his friends. He knows 
that I could help him to become acquainted with a better class of 
men altogether — intellectual fellows, who are doing good in the 
world both for themselves and others ; but he prefers St. Antony’s 
students and their hangers-on. It would almost seem as if for 
some deliberate purpose he were misrepresenting himself.” 

“ And other people,” added Elma, with gentle significance. 

He looked at her with a slow, grave smile. She raised her 
eyes to his, and there was a faint note of warning in her voice as 
she repeated the words, 

“ And other people.” 

He could not pretend to mistake her meaning, and he was 
chivalrous enough to resist the temptation of compelling her to 
make it more obvious. 

“ Yes,” he murmured, indifferently, “ I suppose so.” And with 
raised eyebrows signified that it did not matter much. 

“You think,” she asked, “that it does not matter?” 

“Not much,” was the reply, “and not at all to Tom. It was 
of him that we were speaking.” 

She ignored this hroad hint. 

“ It does matter,” she said, gravely. “ It matters a great deal 
to every man, however independent and — and unselfish he may 
be.” 

“Then you did not believe it?” he inquired, rashly. 

“It?” she echoed, interrogatively. 

“ What you heard,” he explained. 

She reflected for some moments, recalling all that had passed 
between them on this subject. Then she turned her head towards 
him with a pretty little inquisitorial air, keeping her eyes, how- 
ever, fixed upon the carpet. 

“ How do you know that I have heard anything ?” 

“ I foresaw that you would. Certain gossip had, I found some 
time ago, got into a channel which would ultimately lead it to 
you.” 


Dangek. 


165 


“ And you made no attempt to stop it?” 

“ No — that would have made matters worse.” 

She studied the flowers painted on her fan with critical inter- 
est for a moment, and without ceasing her contemplation said, in 
an even, measured way, 

“ It may be of some small interest to you to learn that I be- 
lieved nothing.” 

“Thank you.” 

“ Tell me,” she said, presently, as if reading the words upon the 
painted silk ; “ tell me — that is, if you wish to — who was the per- 
son who suddenly impressed upon you the fact that you were 
more or less responsible for Tom ?” 

“Syra.” 

A little nod, almost imperceptible, betrayed to Crozier that his 
companion’s suspicions had been confirmed. 

“ I do not understand Syra.” 

“ I do not imagine that Syra understands herself,” he replied, 
guardedly. 

She half turned her head towards him, and her lips were ready 
parted with a question, when she seemed to recollect herself, and 
with an unconscious assumption of maidenly dignity she closed 
her fan slowly and carefully. 

“ I wish,” she exclaimed, with a little sigh, “ that Tom would 
assume the responsibilities of human life. I am sure that he is 
very clever. He could be a great artist if only he set his heart 
upon it. There is nothing so discouraging and so sad as to see 
people miss success; to see it within their grasp, and yet to see 
them fail for some reason, for the lack of some little requisite.” 

There was a great movement upon the stairs and in the hall 
beneath them. The next waltz had begun. 

“ That,” be said, with a deprecating smile, as he stood up and 
offered her his arm, “ is life — to see success just in front and nev- 
er to reach it.” 


166 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE RECKONING UP. 

Holdsworth and Crozier met at the foot of the stairs when 
the schottische — number seventeen upon the programme — was 
fairly started. For a moment they stood there — two sturdy, typi- 
cal Englishmen. One fair, blue-eyed and merry ; the other dark- 
er, with crisp curled hair, and thoughtful, deep-set eyes of an ob- 
servant habit ; both straight and upright, with ready hands, and 
a peculiar intrepid carriage of the head. 

“ My dance, I believe,” said Holdsworth, audaciously. 

Crozier nodded his head with a faint smile, and looked round 
him slowly. They were practically alone in that house full of 
people, the stairs being only used for a resting-place during the 
crush between the dances. 

“ Let us sit down,” said the singer, indicating the bottom step. 

And so they sat there with elevated knees held apart, and 
clasped hands between, in a similarity of pose which was remark- 
able. 

Beneath his lowered lashes Holdsworth glanced furtively at his 
companion, waiting. 

“ I have news for you, Holdsworth,” said the singer, after a 
moment. 

The sailor clasped his broad hand round his beard, making the 
golden hair rustle. 

“ Something disagreeable, I bet,” he said, with assumed indif- 
ference. 

“ I do not know whether it will prove disagreeable or not. It 
- is the news of a death.” 

“ A death ?” echoed Holdsworth. “ Emily Harland ?” he added, 
interrogatively, after a pause. 

“Yes.” 

Holdsworth remained silent for some moments. Then he 
heaved a sigh — the easy light sigh of an utterly selfish man. 


THE RECKONING UP. 


167 


“ She always was delicate,” he remarked, in a resigned spirit, 
which was almost ludicrous. 

Crozier turned deliberately and- looked at him as one looks at 
a curious and rare insect. 

“ She died of consumption,” he said. 

“ Yes,” answered the other in the same cool way, “ it was in 
the family.” 

Crozier rose from his seat. He did not even take the trouble 
to show his disgust. 

“ That is my news,” he said, curtly. He was about to move 
away when he looked down at his companion, and their eyes met. 
Then he stayed. Holdsworth’s face was haggard. It was no 
longer the face of a reckless ne’er-do-weel, devoid of scruple, free 
from remorse. In a moment the features had changed. He who 
sat there and looked up into Crozier’s strong, peaceful face was a 
hunted man, with haggard, scared, weary eyes, the victim of per- 
sistent ill-fortune. The singer had a strong man’s true softness 
of heart. He had seen that look on the sailor’s face before, and 
had never yet turned away from it. He now stood at the foot 
of the stairs with his hand upon the oak balustrade — simply 
stood there and said nothing ; but his presence had a comforting 
sense of sympathy and reliability such as draws us to certain per- 
sons in time of trouble. 

The gay, rattling music rang in their ears ; beneath their feet 
the floor vibrated incessantly. 

At last Holdsworth spoke in a low, unsteady voice. 

“ When you first told me that you had — helped her,” he said, 
“ I was jealous of you. I don’t believe I even said thank you. 
Or perhaps you would not let me do so.” 

The last words were uttered with a faint bitterness, but Crozier 
showed no sign of having heard them. 

“ I am not going to say it now. You need not go away,” con- 
tinued the sailor, “ I know better than to offer thanks to you. 
But I want to reckon up with you.” 

He took his programme from his pocket and laid it upon his 
knee. Then he tore the pencil away from the card and began 
writing. In the dim light of the shaded lamp, at the foot of the 
broad old staircase, a strange transaction took place while the 
jerky schottische music rang through the house. 

“ Five years and six months,” said Holdsworth, slowly writing 


168 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


as he spoke. “ That is five years and a half at — what ? What 
did you allow her?” 

“ Seventy pounds a year,” answered Crozier, betraying no sur- 
prise. 

“ Three hundred and fifty — three hundred and eighty-five 
pounds,” calculated the sailor aloud. “ I shall pay you that, Cro- 
zier, some day.” 

He tore the dainty little card in two and looked up, programme- 
pencil in hand. 

“Will you take an IOU?” 

“No.” 

Holdsworth did not press the point. He looked at the pencil 
figures again, to make sure that there was no mistake, and re- 
turned the two pieces of polished pasteboard to his waistcoat- 
pocket. 

“ Three hundred and eighty-five pounds,” he repeated, in a 
business-like manner ; “ I shall not forget the amount.” 

It was the price of a ruined human existence — not much after 
all, and probably more than it was worth ; but he did not seem 
to think of that. 

“ Three hundred and eighty-five pounds,” confirmed the singer. 

Holdsworth stood up, but neither moved away. 

“ I suppose you will let me pay it,” he said, defiantly. 

“Oh yes,” replied the possessor of an annual income of over 
three thousand pounds, “ I will let you pay it.” 

This was justice indeed. The affair was thus arranged; the 
last apparent obligation put into a fair way of settlement, and 
there seemed to be nothing more to say. Crozier made a little 
movement towards the dancing-room, but the sailor detained him 
by a slight jerk of the head. 

“ In case,” he said, with simulated cynicism (his eyes were dull 
with anguish while he spoke) — “in case there is any misconcep- 
tion in your mind as to past events, I may as well tell you that I 
alone was to blame. I alone was the cause of Emily Harland’s 
leaving her home and going — to the bad.” 

“ Yes ; I suppose so,” with a certain cool cruelty which was 
most certainly founded upon the past, for it was totally unlike 
Samuel Crozier. 

“ Yes,” continued the sailor, reflectively, “ I suppose you know 
that I ruined her. But, Crozier, I did not do it deliberately, re- 


THE RECKONING HP. 


169 


member that. I was led away — perhaps she was a little bit to 
blame. I am such a beastly impulsive fellow, you know, and act 
on the spur of the moment, leaving regret till afterwards.” 

“Well,” said Crozier, “I wouldn’t think too much about it 
now. It is finished and done with, and there is no good to be 
got out of attempting to fix the blame upon any one in particu- 
lar.” 

Holdsworth stood in front of the singer, leaning against the 
wall. He was watching his face speculatively. 

“ I wonder,” he said, presently, “ if you did right in keeping 
us apart ? It was a great responsibility, Crozier.” 

“ Yes,” was the answer, “ it was. But there is nothing so des- 
picable on earth as the man who tries to get through life without 
incurring responsibility. Despite what has happened, I still think 
that you were better apart.” 

“ You mean that she was better apart from me ?” 

The implacable Crozier nodded his head in acquiescence. It 
was an unfortunate fact that Holdsworth divined his former offi- 
cer’s thoughts concerning himself with remarkable accuracy, and 
Crozier was too straightforward a man to deny them. 

“ I wish, Crozier,” continued the sailor, “ that I could under- 
stand you a little better. I wish I could understand why you 
have done all that you have done and tried for me.” He took 
the half-programme from his pocket and glanced at the pencil 
figures, hard and black upon the polished surface of the card. “ I 
don’t think,” he continued, “ that it ought to finish up with this !” 

He held out the card so that the figures were visible to his com- 
panion. 

“On the contrary,” said Crozier, coolly, “I do not see what 
better ending could come about. It is a settlement in full, is it 
not ?” 

Holdsworth shrugged his shoulders impatiently. 

“ No,” he said, curtly, “ it is not.” 

“ I think we had better consider it so,” said Crozier, moving 
away. The music had ceased, and the dancers were already crowd- 
ing out of the hot room into the passage. 

Holdsworth followed, and they walked side by side down the 
broad corridor towards a group of mutual acquaintances. 

“ By , Crozier,” whispered the sailor, with an incredulous 

wonder in his voice, “ you are a hard man !” 


170 


THE FHA.NTOM FUTURE. 


The singer turned towards him with a faint, almost apologetic 
smile. 

“ I’m afraid you are right,” he said. And they joined the 
merry party, where Tom Yalliant and the squire were laughing 
at each other. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

FOREWARNED. 

Despite Crozier’s tirades against the degeneration of musical 
taste, he gathered a certain amount of enjoyment from the first 
nights at which his appearance was necessary. He had under- 
taken the musical criticism of a London weekly paper and two 
provincial journals because their editors had asked him to do so, 
and at a time when the monthly check for “ literary contribu- 
tions” was welcome. Now, in his affluence, he intended to con- 
tinue it for its own sake. The love of criticising is deeply plant- 
ed in every man’s soul, and Crozier wrote in a deliberate and 
straightforward style, which not only carried weight with it, but 
conveyed a sense of earnestness and an unusual freedom from 
personal consideration or bias of any description. About the 
operas-bouffes and operas-comiques which at certain intervals carry 
all better musical taste before them, he wrote curtly and descrip- 
tively, but not with open criticism. Public opinion was against 
him, and he had neither the power nor the energy to attempt its 
education into better channels. It was after all a mere matter of 
taste. The British public liked its music thin and tawdry, served 
up with a great show of tinsel, and a still greater display of shapely 
limbs. Soit! It was no affair of Samuel Crozier’s. 

To Syra he grumbled occasionally in a semi-bantering way — to 
a mere bar-maid ! It is to be feared, however, that this singer 
and critic was hopelessly bohemian in those days. He even 
treated her as if she were a woman, with a woman’s instinctive 
good taste ; sometimes he actually went so outrageously far as to 
treat her and speak to her as if she were a lady. 

It was with some feeling of pleasant anticipation, therefore, 
that he called a cab one evening in March and drove to a new 
theatre in the West End. The excitement in dramatic and ar- 


FOREWARNED. 


171 


tistic circles anent this new venture had been intense for some 
time. The building itself was as gorgeous as masonry without 
and gold-leaf within could well make it, and of course its stage 
was constructed with a strict regard to the contingencies of comic 
opera. The house was to be warmed by an entertainment of this 
description, got up with a due regard to cheap tunefulness and 
the newest slang. 

At the side of the stalls there was a kind of lounge, or draw- 
ing-room, where the occupants of those luxurious seats could re- 
tire between the acts to stand about and meet their friends with- 
out being actually compelled to leave the theatre. It was here 
that Crozier, on entering, met several acquaintances and friends. 
These men were mostly brother-critics, and they returned later to 
the same spot to discuss their verdict upon the performance. 

The news of Sam Crozier’s good-fortune was still fresh, and he 
was sufficiently a favorite to call down real and hearty congratu- 
lations from all who knew him. 

“ Here comes Croesus !” said one man, gravely, the correspond- 
ent of a comic American journal. 

“ So he is,” said another, who wrote musical criticism for a re- 
ligious publication, and had, strictly speaking, no business in the 
theatre at all. “Let us try and borrow money from him — eh, 
Sam? I suppose all your friends are doing that now.” 

“ Trying — yes !” answered Crozier, as he shook hands all round 
with his vague, genial smile. 

“ I congratulate you, Crozier,” said a melancholy looking man, 
who wore spectacles, coming forward with a thin delicate hand 
out-stretched. “I congratulate you from the bottom of my 
heart. I suppose now I may look forward to "being appointed 
musical and dramatic critic.to the Daily Intelligence , which is the 
aim of my life. For years I have waited and prayed for your 
death. I have hung about concert-halls in order to watch you 
take your high notes, and I have even consulted eminent medical 
men as to whether they have ever heard of a brute, with a con- 
stitution like a camel, breaking a blood-vessel on F sharp ! This, 
however, does as well, so we will say nothing more about the 
weary years of waiting.” 

Some of the listeners joined in Crozier’s easy laugh, and most 
of them smiled, but the man who had spoken never changed 
countenance. He looked gravely round him through his large 


172 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


spectacles, and walked away to greet a friend. He rarely spoke 
seriously— this eccentric genius — but he never smiled. 

At this moment the orchestra struck up a lively introduction, 
and there was a general move. The critics were placed within 
reach of each other, and some of them composed themselves to 
quiet slumber at once, while the younger members of the frater- 
nity fumbled for their pencils, with just sufficient ostentation to 
call the attention of any lady who happened to be looking in 
their direction. 

Crozier, who was without pencil or note-book, gave his usual 
placidly earnest attention to the music. He had a singular habit 
of looking straight in front of him in a theatre, which arose 
doubtless from the fact that his face was well known among fre- 
quenters of first nights and lovers of music. If he looked round, 
the action entailed greeting acquaintances who interested him lit- 
tle, or it would be received by nudges and suppressed whispers 
which in no way gratified him, flattering though it might be. 

During the first act he scarcely removed his eyes from the 
stage, and at the end of it he entered into a deep discussion with 
a friend occupying the next stall, who advocated comic opera as 
being within the understanding of the people. He therefore had 
as yet scarcely looked round the theatre. While the under- 
standing of the people was still in dispute, a young man made 
his way along between the knees of grumbling old gentlemen 
and stonily staring dowagers, with a view of occupying the seat 
on Crozier’s left hand, which was empty. This individual was 
he who had first addressed the singer on his entrance. 

He took the vacant chair, and presently raised his glasses to 
his eyes. The glasses were directed towards a box somewhat 
high up upon the right of the stage, much to the contentment of 
a be-diamonded lady occupying the same ; but the critic’s eyes, 
instead of looking through the lenses, were directed in the shadow 
of his hand to the “ lounge ” where he had first met Crozier. 
There were many gentlemen standing there with due solemnity 
and appreciation of their own shirt-fronts, and a few ladies exam- 
ining the decorations. 

“ Sam,” said the young fellow, without lowering his binoculars, 
“ what have you been up to ?” 

Crozier accorded him his attention with an anticipatory smile. 
Despite a certain ring of gravity in the speaker’s tone, he could 


FOREWARNED. 


173 


only conclude that the comprehensive question was the begin- 
ning of a joke. 

“ What have I been up to ?” he repeated. “ Let me see. 
Nothing criminal within the last week, I think.” 

The young fellow laid his opera-glasses on his knees, and 
turned sidewise in his seat, crossing his legs and leaning his arm 
upon the cushioned back of the stall. 

“Of course,” he said, “it is no business of mine; but I hap- 
pened to be looking round the place just now, and I saw two 
fellows standing in the gangway behind the upper boxes. There 
was nothing at all noticeable in them beyond the fact that they 
were looking at you ; in fact, one of them was pointing you out 
to the other. I watched them, and there was something sneaky 
and disagreeable in their movements which I didn’t like at all. 
Don’t look in that direction just yet ; but they are now standing 
in the little ‘salon ’ place, where we all met to-night.” 

Crozier scratched his strong chin thoughtfully with one finger. 

“ It is a funny business,” he said ; “ I don’t remember commit- 
ting any crime lately. I expect they’re secretaries of charity or- 
ganization societies, who have been reading the Illustrated Lon- 
don News, and want to fix me for an annual subscription or so.” 

The correspondent of the theological paper was not by any 
means a serious young man, but he took this incident very 
gravely. , 

“ It is no joke,” he said, “ to be taken for some one else in 
some cases. Of course there are plenty of us here to-night to 
prove your identity ; but I have a wholesome dread of the law.” 

At this moment the curtain rose, and Crozier took the oppor- 
tunity of glancing towards the spot indicated by his companion. 
The two men were certainly there, standing modestly in a dark 
corner, but rendered conspicuous by their rough top-coats amid 
the black-clad pleasure-seekers. 

“I admire the police very much,” he said, pleasantly, to his com- 
panion as he settled himself to face the stage, “ in the abstract.” 

At the end of the act he leaned forward to seek his hat be- 
neath the seat. 

“ What are you going to do?” asked his companion. 

“ I am going out — at least, I am going to the fo/er. These 
fellows will finish by making me conspicuous, which for a man of 
my shy and retiring nature is a painful prospect.” 


!74 THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 

The young journalist did not seem to take the matter in quite 
such a placid spirit. 

“ What ! are you going to speak to them ?” he asked. 

“ No ; but I am going to stand quite close to them. They 
would like a good look at me, I am sure.” 

“ Well, don’t let us have a scene.” 

Crozier laughed reassuringly. 

“ I have never taken even a minor part in a scene yet. This is 
hardly the place to make a debut," he said. “ Come along and 
stand near me; we will talk weather while they walk round us 
and take notes. Privately, Soames, I believe it is you they are 
after.”* 

And he rose. In every detail he carried out his threat, even to 
discussing the weather. 

The two men bore it for some moments in silence, then one 
made a step forward, and without touching Crozier, stood be- 
side him. Soames, the newspaper correspondent, was in front of 
him, looking up from his inferior height into the singer’s face. 

“ George Shenstone,” said the man, in a clear undertone ; 
“ George Shenstone, unless I’m mistaken.” 

Crozier’s finger and thumb had been resting in his waistcoat- 
pocket, and he now withdrew them from it with a card which he 
handed unostentatiously to the detective. It was all done so 
quietly and indifferently by both men that no one who did not actu- 
ally hear their words would have thought that any communication 
had passed between them ; but Soames noticed that at the men- 
tion of the words “ George Shenstone ” an expression of mingled 
surprise and anxiety passed across the singer’s face. 

“ No, I am not George- Shenstone,” he replied, as he gave the 
card. “ That is my name, and there are twenty men within call 
who will vouch for it.” 

The man glanced at the card, and gave it back immediately. 

“ I thought we were on the wrong track,” he said, apologetically. 
“ I ought to have remembered your face before. There is a pho- 
tograph of you in a music-publisher’s shop in Oxford Street.” 

“ Indeed.” 

“ I must apologize,” continued the detective, simply ; “ it was 
very clumsy of me.” 

“ Not at all,” answered Crozier, in a constrained tone, which was 
unlike him. 


FOREWARNED. 


175 


The detective glanced in a keenly questioning manner at his 
impassive face, and then moved away quietly without saying any- 
thing more. He called his companion with a mere movement of 
the eyebrows, and they passed out of the auditorium together. 

Crozier did not move until the swinging-door had closed be- 
hind them. 

“ Soames,” he said, “ don’t say anything about this. I believe 
I know something of the fellow they are after — a poor devil of a 
blue-jacket, who got sick of the sea before his time was up, and 
deserted. Not much of a crime in times of peace.” 

“ All right !” answered the journalist ; “ I will keep quiet.” 

And it is worth noting that he did so. * 

Then they got separated, and Crozier presently went back to the 
stalls. He did not, however, return to his own, but occupied for 
a few minutes a vacant chair next the melancholy gentleman who 
so openly coveted his post on the staff of the Daily Intelligence. 

“ I say, Watson,” he said, when he was seated, “ have you got a 
telegram-form ?” 

“ Never am without one, my friend,” replied the old stager. 

After a short search he handed Crozier the required paper, and 
discreetly looked the other way while the singer wrote. 

The gist of the message was hardly calculated to be read, how- 
ever, at once by a casual observer with much edification. 

“ I was to-day mistaken for a seaman, late Willow-wren , who 
is wanted. — S. C.” 

This ambiguous and pointless news was addressed to William 
Holdsworth, Heath End, Goldheath ; and a few minutes after it 
was written a commissionnaire hurried to the General Post-office, 
from whence it was despatched. 

In the mean time the play was progressing happily enough, 
and the critics were beginning to yawn. At the end of the third 
act these gentlemen met in the open space at the side of the 
stalls and talked over their verdict, after which, it is a painful 
duty to record, some of them went home. 

Crozier, however, stayed to the end, as was his wont. When 
at length the curtain fell he passed out of the theatre alone, and 
at the door found the detective who had spoken to him earlier in 
the evening. There was no sign of his companion. 

The man dropped alongside of him when he had penetrated 
through the crowd and fell into step. 


176 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Excuse me, Mr. Crozier,” he said ; “ excuse my troubling you 
again, but we have to suppress our own inclinations very often in 
my profession, and I can assure you that it is quite against my 
will.” 

The singer laughed as he lighted his cigar. 

“ Oh,” he answered, “ pray don’t apologize. I suppose it is 
the duty of every honest citizen to assist the cause of justice.” 

The disciple of justice did not exactly seize with avidity upon 
this theory. He contented himself with murmuring something to 
the effect that the general impression was of that nature. 

“I have just recollected, sir, ’■* he continued, in a business-like 
tone,#“ that you were once in her Majesty’s navy. Did you 
ever serve on board the Willow-wren ?” 

The question, asked with a certain doubtfulness as if the event 
were very unlikely, might have disconcerted any one totally un- 
prepared for it. 

“•■Yes,” answered Crozier, quite naturally, “ I served seven years 
on board of her.” 

“Then this man Shenstone would be on board at the same 
time as you.” 

The singer turned slowly and deliberately. The man, who was 
slightly above him in height, was looking at him, and their eyes 
met. 

“ Indeed,” said the singer, with an expression on his quiet face 
which can only be described as dense. 

“Yes,” remarked the man, vaguely, “I believe he would.” 
He could not make out that density, and something in the ex- 
officer’s manner made him feel uncomfortable, as if he were prying 
into the affairs of a gentleman with whom he had no business. 

“ Well,” he added, with some hesitation, after they had walked 
a short distance in silence, “ I can only apologize again, sir, for 
having troubled you.” 

“ Not at all,” said Crozier, looking straight in front of him. 

“ Good-night, sir.” 

“Good-night.” 

The detective dropped behind and presently crossed the road, 
while Crozier walked on smoking restfully. 

“Got rid of him,” he murmured between the puffs with a 
certain satisfaction. 

As he walked on through the crowd, beneath the brilliant 


FOREWARNED. 


177 


lamps, amid the roar and hubbub of midnight life in the Strand, 
he reflected as quietly and collectedly as if he had been alone in 
some deserted country lane, or keeping the middle watch on 
board the Willow-wren. 

This power of self-absorption was no special possession of his. 
It is a growth of the pavement — that stony place where many 
vices and few virtues flourish — and we others, we men who trot 
the pavement, soon acquire it. We soon learn to pass by Vice 
and touch elbows with it, unheeding, uncontaminated, and proba- 
bly unmoved by pity. But Virtue, alas ! we also gaze at vaguely 
and admire it not, scarcely taking the trouble to distinguish it. 
Neither has the power of affecting our inward thoughts, of touch- 
ing that individuality which, although hidden in city-folks (who 
sooner or later find the necessity of passing through existence 
with the crowd, acting as the crowd has acted), is there as strongly 
as in country-bred people, who show their eccentricities to all the 
world. It is assuredly a special foresight of Providence, in view 
of overcrowded cities, that if a man only have the goal in sight 
he can steer as straight, a course for it amid a seething hive of 
vicious humanity as in a fair and virtuous hamlet. 

Samuel Crozier never thought much in an abstract fashion of 
the course that he was steering. Indeed, he rarely gave himself 
time to think at all — never sat idly smoking over a smouldering 
fire — never dreamed day-dreams over a closed book. When not 
actually and actively employed he was reading, and there were 
few men in London with a wider knowledge of general literature. 
When his hands alone were employed he sang in an undertone to 
himself. With no fuss or busy show he led an active life. Of 
course he might have made it a more profitable one, but — you 
and I — what of ours ? What of all the thousand lives around us 
of which we know something and guess at more? He might 
have worked harder at his adopted profession — might have made 
more of the great gift (one of the greatest vouchsafed to men) 
that God had placed within his lips; but who among us does 
make the best of his opportunities? If we did so invariably, 
human life would not be human life at all, and the lord of creation 
would not be the one unfinished, unsatisfactory bungle in an oth- 
erwise perfect work. 

As he walked home from the theatre, and after a little sigh of 
relief directed towards the departing detective, Crozier allowed 
12 


178 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


himself to reflect — not upon Wrong and Right and such things 
— but upon his own recent action as regarded William Holds- 
worth. Of course he had done wrong ; there could be no doubt 
about that; but he smoked serenely, and to judge from the ex- 
pression of his face, was fully prepared to go on doing wrong. 
Such, indeed, was the case. He had warned the runaway sailor, 
and if further aid was needed, he was in an indefinite way pre- 
pared to render it — not from friendship towards the unsatisfactory 
fellow, but because there existed between them the mystic tie of 
a mutual affection. One name there was in either heart enshrined 
in the halo of an old association — the name of Willow-wren — 
and for the sake of that name an upright man willingly frustrated 
the cause of justice, and rendered a great service to a shipmate, 
who would never possess the means, nor be actuated by the desire, 
to return it. While he reflected, there arose before his mind’s 
eye the upright form of a genial, white-haired old sailor — his 
former chief — a man whose heart and soul were wrapped up in 
the Willow-wren , and who boasted in a harmless, lovable way that 
her good name had never been dragged through court-martial or 
newspaper trial. 

“Yes,” muttered the ex-officer, “ Holdsworth must get away, 
for the sake of the old ship.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

FOR THE SHIP’S SAKE. 

It happened that Crozier reached his rooms rather earlier than 
usual in the evening following the theatre episode. He had been 
out several nights in succession, and was tired ; but the fatal habit 
of keeping late hours was strong upon him, and at eleven o’clock 
he took a book, lighted his pipe, and established himself in his 
deep arm-chair to enjoy a quiet hour. 

Hardly was he seated when a light footstep beneath his win- 
dow caused him to look up. The sound of it in some way sug- 
gested flight. It seemed as if some one had fled to Lime Court, 
and having no knowledge of the locality, was now standing be- 
neath the window with the double purpose of ascertaining whether 


FOR THE SHIP’S SAKE. 


179 


the pursuer were still following, and of observing the possible 
exits in case of necessity. 

The very lightness of the step attracted Crozier’s attention. 
The ordinary malefactor is not light-footed. A chase down the 
darker streets and alleys leading from the Strand is of nightly 
occurrence, but he who leads it rarely runs lightly- He is gener- 
ally a pickpocket, with shocking bad boots several sizes too large 
for him. The scientific burglar is a heavy-footed man, but he 
counteracts this natural defect by a pair of list slippers, which 
make no sound at all. Lightness of tread is a thing that cannot 
be acquired ; we inherit it from gentle ancestor, or we walk heav- 
ily. He whose father or grandfather once wore hobnailed boots 
will walk as if those excellent pedal protectors were bound to his 
own ankles, and only a few generations shod in thinner leather 
will eradicate the peculiarity. Without thinking much of these 
things in a general way, the singer allowed his attention to wan- 
der from his book, and he sat listening in a semi-indifferent way 
for the next movement of those light feet. 

Suddenly there arose in the silence a sound which made the 
placid singer jump to his feet, and throw his book upon the table 
without staying to mark the place. This sound was a whistle, 
low and melodious without being actually furtive. It might have 
been the call of one boy to another in a game of hide-and-seek, a 
pastime much in vogue among the youths of the neighborhood, 
and to which the intricacies of the Temple lent additional charms. 
Only a naval man would have recognized that the whistle was 
the boatswain’s call of “All hands on deck !” 

While Crozier stood listening the call was repeated. 

“ Holdsworth !” he muttered. “ What a fool ! What an in- 
sane fool !” 

Then he ran lightly down-stairs and opened the door. In the 
shadow of the lime-tree, which was weakly budding, stood a man 
looking round him apprehensively. 

“ Come in,” said Crozier, briefly. 

The man came forward, ran lightly up the steps and passed 
into the dimly lighted passage. He was breathless, and his weak 
mouth twitched convulsively. 

“ I did not know your number,” he gasped, “ but I knew it 
was Lime Court.” 

Crozier nodded his head, and led the way silently up-stairs. 


180 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


When they were in the room and the door was closed, he spoke 
at length, and there was a suggestion of tolerance in his voice 
which his companion’s quick ears did not fail to catch. 

“ What a fool you are, Holdsworth !” he said. 

“That’s it,” exclaimed the other, petulantly. “Hit a man 
when he is down ; stoop from the heights of virtue, and shove a 
chap down the hill. But I have no time, Crozier, to listen if you 
are going to abuse me, which I suppose you have a right to do. 
I’m in a beastly narrow place, and somehow I’ve come to you. 
It isn’t the first time, God knows.” 

“ No,” agreed Crozier, “ it isn’t the first time. But surely any 
one with a scrap of sense would have known that it was simple 
foolery to come to London after ray telegram.” 

“ Your telegram ?” repeated the other. “ What do you mean ?” 

“ I telegraphed to you last night.” 

“ At Goldheath ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I have been in London three days.” 

“ Ah,” said Crozier, in a softer tone, “ that is a different matter. 
I beg your pardon. My warning missed fire.” 

At this moment some one walked sharply past beneath the 
window. Holdsworth, who had in a great degree regained his 
composure, changed color. 

“ Listen !” he whispered ; “ who is that?” 

Then, for the first time, they looked into each other’s faces. 
In Iloldsworth’s eyes there was an unpleasant glitter, which by 
some strange influence was transmitted to Crozier’s. The singer’s 
thoughtful face was quite transformed by it, and the change was 
hardly pleasant. These two men had been in action together, 
actually fighting side by side. Mere affairs of a boat’s crew these 
had been, in connection with the suppression of Chinese piracy ; 
but where a man’s life is concerned it matters little whether the 
battle be a Waterloo or a skirmish. In those few moments both 
recalled the half-forgotten dangers they had shared in by-gone 
days, and perhaps Holdsworth benefited by the recollection. The 
footsteps died away, and both heaved a little sigh of relief. 

“ There is no time to lose,” said Holdsworth, hurriedly ; “ lis- 
ten to this: Yesterday morning I was walking along a quiet 
street near Victoria Station, when who should I meet, face to 
face, but Jerome. You remember him ; he was a middy in your 


FOR THE SHIP’S SAKE. 


181 


time, and the greatest fool on board. He recognized me at once, 
though I did not give him credit for so much sense; stopped and 
held out his stick so that I could not pass. ‘ George Shenstone, 
A. B.,’ he drawled, in that confoundedly squeaky voice which 
used to be nowhere in a breeze of wind; ‘George Shenstone, I 
think you’re wanted.’ I wasn’t going to be taken by a weak- 
kneed dandy like Jerome, who is no more a sailor than those 
sugar-tongs (yes, thanks, I will have a little cold water), so I let 
out. I did not hit him in the face ; only on the chest ; but I 
think I hit hard ; then I sheered off.” 

Crozier took up an evening paper which lay upon the table. 

“ Yes,” he said, slowly, “ you must have hit hard, for you broke 
two of his ribs. - There is an account of it here. Luckily for 
you, Jerome was too much injured to make his deposition, or give 
a minute description of his assailant. They fear some internal 
complication. There it is ; you had better read it.” 

Holdsworth took the newspaper and read the short notice 
through once or twice. 

“Just like my luck,” he exclaimed, recklessly. “But he will 
be all right, never fear ; I didn’t hit him hard. Besides, he must 
have recovered sufficiently to give particulars, because I was 
tracked to Myra’s to-night. I went in there with Varden. Soon 
afterwards two fellows came in and asked 'for a drink. That 
pretty girl there — Svra — served them in an off-hand way, and I 
saw the fellows glance uncomfortably around, as if they felt a 
little out of their element. It appears that all the frequenters of 
Myra’s know each other more or less, and these two outsiders 
were promptly recognized as such. When they had left, the 
question arose as to who and what they were, and one fellow 
laughingly suggested that they might be detectives. I laughed 
with the rest, but I knew that he was right. I can tell you, Cro- 
zier, it took me some time to make up my mind to go out of that 
door. When I did go out — hanging on to Yarden’s arm like a 
sailor’s sweetheart — I looked up and down the street, and in a 
door-way higher up the hill I spotted the two men. We walked 
along as far as Charing Cross, and I suppose they followed us all 
the way. I only dared to turn my head once, and then I saw 
them some way behind. At Charing Cross Varden took a han- 
som. I got round the corner, and made a bolt down Craven 
Street, through that tunnel under the railway-station, and back 


182 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


into the Strand by the darkest streets I could find. I have given 
them the slip, but there is no time to be lost. What am I to do, 
Crozier? Tell me, for the sake of old times.” 

“ Oh,” said the singer, “ it is all right. I’ll help you, but not 
for the sake of old times, Holdsworth. I’ll do it for the sake of 
the ship. We don’t want her name dragged through the police- 
courts. These two men came to me last night at the theatre. 
They mistook me for you, and as soon as they were persuaded to 
the contrary I wired to you at Goldheath to be on the lookout, 
taking it for granted that you would lie low there until the affair 
blew over. Of course I did not know of this business of Jerome’s. 
I thought it was only the old question of the unexpired service. 
Afterwards they came back to me, apologized, and said that they 
had discovered that I had been an officer on board the Willow- 
rvren, and told me that they were seeking for you.” 

Holdsworth’s confidence was returning. This was undoubtedly 
the result of his companion’s cool readiness to assist him. He 
knew that Crozier would carry out anything he undertook. 

“ And now,” continued the singer, “ you must get back to Gold- 
heath. That is the safest place for you. Every outlet from the 
kingdom is watched, and a sailor cannot disguise himself when he 
smells tar. They would spot you by the very way you walked 
down the gangway to the boat. You had better stay here to- 
night, and go down by the first train to-morrow morning.” 

“ Hush !” interrupted Holdsworth. “ What is that?” 

There was no mistaking the official tread ; and, moreover, other 
footsteps accompanied it. Holdsworth reached out his hand tow- 
ards the gas, but his companion motioned him to leave it. 

“ It is all right,” he whispered. “ The curtains are thick ; they 
cannot see that the gas is alight.” 

“ Then turn it out and look through the corner of the window,” 
said Holdsworth. 

Crozier obeyed him, and moved cautiously across the dark room 
towards the window. 

“There is a light down-stairs in the passage,” Holdsworth 
whispered, hoarsely. 

“ So there is in every passage in the court,” replied Crozier, as 
he Cautiously drew back the curtain. “ We are a dissipated lot ! 
Yes,” he continued, “ there they are — two fellows in plain clothes 
and a bobby.” 


FOR THE SHIP’S SAKE. 


183 


“ Well, then, I’m caught.” 

“ Not yet. They have traced you as far as here, by some 
means or other, but they must be off the scent now. There is no 
place in London like the Temple for leading people astray, espe- 
cially at night, when some of the passages are barred, and others 
left open.” 

The murmur of suppressed voices reached the ears of the two 
men as they stood in the dark room, hardly breathing. Then 
Crozier closed the curtain cautiously, and lighted the gas, taking, 
however, the precaution of keeping it low. 

“ You cannot stay here, Holdsworth,” he said. “ As soon as 
these fellows move you must make a bolt for it.” 

“ I think,” said the other, deliberately, “ that I will go out and 
give myself up. It is not worth getting you into a row.” 

Nevertheless, he stood still beside the table, and showed no 
sign of moving. 

“Rot,” murmured Crozier, sweetly. He knew William Holds- 
worth very well, and rightly judged that the argument would go 
no further. “Listen to me,” he continued, in a business-like way. 
“ As soon as these fellows move we will go out together. I have 
an old ulster which you can wear, and you may as well take one 
of my hats. We will go out arm in arm, and simply brazen it 
out. If the fellows see through it, make a fight for it and run ; 
I will make a fight, and let them collar me. It is very dark all 
about here, and they will not be able to tell one from the other. 
Now, pay great attention to this — wait, I will draw you a chart, 
because it is complicated. There are four outlets from Lime Court. 
This is the one you must take. It divides about ten yards down. 
The alley to the right is the one you must follow, but don’t go 
straight ahead ; turn sharp to the right as soon as you get into it. 
It looks almost like a door-way, but it is really a passage, which 
curves round and takes you into a narrow street near the embank- 
ment. Go across Blackfriars Bridge, make your way along South- 
wark Street, and get into London Bridge Station just in time to 
miss the last train to somewhere or other, it does not much mat- 
ter where. Then go to the Bridge House Hotel to sleep, and 
take care to let everybody know that you have missed the last 
train, which will account for the absence of luggage. Go down 
to Goldheath by the first train to-morrow morning. Do you un- 
derstand ?” 


184 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


Holdswortb studied the roughly drawn chart for a moment. 

“ Yes,” he said, eagerly, “ I understand ; and by , Crozier, 

if I get out of this I’ll — ” 

“ All right,” interrupted Crozier, almost roughly, “ I know all 
about that.” 

Holdsworth shrugged his shoulders, and laughed bitterly. 

“ I see you have not changed,” he said. “ There is a suspicion 
of the quarter-deck about you still.” 

But Crozier was not listening. He had passed through the 
curtained door-way into his bedroom, and presently he returned 
carrying a large coat and a hat. 

“ Here you are,” he said. “ Put that ulster on, and the hat. 
Nothing changes a man’s appearauce so much as another fellow’s 
hat. I will wear yours,” he continued, after a pause, “ especially 
as I notice that it is a superior article to my own.” 

In a few moments Holdsworth was ready. His companion 
slipped on a top-coat, and then turned out the gas. He ap- 
proached the window, and drew aside the curtain. 

“ They have gone,” he said. “ No doubt they have dispersed 
to watch the exits, which is all the better. Turn up the gas and 
let me have a look at you.” 

A short survey apparently satisfied him. 

“ Yes,” he said, “you will do splendidly. And now cigars, and 
then we will be complete. Cigars and a swagger.” 

He handed the box towards Holdsworth across the table and 
helped himself. He struck a match, and lighted up before hand- 
ing the match to his companion. Instead of taking it, Holds- 
worth leaned forward with the cigar between his lips; and had 
either man been in the least nervous it would have been impossi- 
ble to hide a slight tremble of hand or lip. But cigar and match 
were alike steady, and the tobacco glowed. Then Holdsworth 
looked up and their eyes met. Both were smiling, as if they 
took a youthful pleasure in seeking danger for its own sake. 
That passing smile illuminated by a flickering wax match, framed 
. in a halo of cigar smoke, was the recollection that each carried of 
the other through the rest of his life, for they never looked into 
each other’s face again. Crozier threw the match into the fire- 
place, and led the way towards the door. 

“ By - the - way,” he said on the stairs, “ have you enough 
money?” 


FOR THE SHIP’S SAKE. 


185 


“ Yes, thanks,” was the reply. “ Fortunately I got a check 
cashed yesterday, so I need not borrow anything from you. I 
owe you a good deal, Crozier, that I can never pay, but if some 
day you get a check for three hundred and eighty-five pounds, 
pay it into your bank, and remember that the remainder of my 
debt is not quite forgotten.” 

Holdsworth was under the warming influence of real honest 
gratitude, and it was rather annoying not to be able to express it. 
He did not dare to do more than hint at it in this way, and the 
singer gave him no encouragement. His faith in Holdsworth’s 
gratitude was dead, and it could never now be revived. 

“ Five years and a half,” continued the fugitive, “ at seventy, is 
three hundred and eighty-five pounds. Some day I will pay you.” 

“ Better leave it as it is,” grumbled Crozier. His hand was 
on the latch, and turning, tie looked sharply at his companion. 
“ Are you ready ?” he inquired. “ As soon as we are outside take 
my arm, and try to walk differently from yourself ; put on a 
swagger, and hang your head. Don’t let them see that you’ve 
been drilled.” 

Then he opened the door, and they passed out. It was a clear 
dark night with no moon. In the open country the reflection of 
the stars might have illuminated the earth to some small extent, 
but in the narrow passages and courts of the Temple the darkness 
was profound. With linked arms they went down the steps to- 
gether, and crossed the court. There was a man standing idly 
at the exit by which they intended to pass. He appeared to be 
searching for a match wherewith to light his pipe. As they 
passed the lime-tree, Holdsworth committed a slight error by fall- 
ing into step in a practised manner with his companion. 

The man struck a match at the precise moment when they 
passed him, and guarding it within his half-closed hands, managed 
very cleverly to throw the light upon their faces, while apparently 
having no other intention than that of lighting his pipe. Holds- 
worth, however, who was nearest to him, frustrated his design by 
deliberately shielding his eyes with his hand as if the light daz- 
zled him. 

“ It’s confoundedly dark,” he said, at the same time. 

Crozier assented airily, and they passed on ; but glancing back 
over his shoulder, he saw the man run across the court, doubtless 
with the intention of calling a companion. 


186 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Run !” whispered the singer. “ Run for it !” 

Side by side they sped through the narrow passages, and pres- 
ently emerged into a deserted street. 

“ Now,” said Crozier, somewhat breathlessly, “ we must walk 
a little. There are often policemen about here, and we must not 
attract attention.” 

Soon after he broke into a run again, and guided his compan- 
ion through a maze of narrow' and dirty streets. Occasionally 
they passed a house that was lighted up, and from which the 
throb of an engine suggested printing, which is essentially a noc- 
turnal industry in these hurried times, but most of the buildings 
upon either side of them were dark and deserted. 

At length they arrived in a broad thoroughfare through which 
a scanty traffic straggled. 

“ Here you are !” said Crozier. “ Take a hansom to London 
Bridge. I go this way. We must not be seen together. Good- 
bye ?” 

He turned to go at once, without waiting for thanks, with- 
out taking his hand from his pocket; but Holdsworth followed 
him. 

“ Good-bye, Crozier,” he said, in a painfully concentrated voice, 
as he held his hand out so that it was impossible to ignore it. 

The singer shook hands quite simply and naturally. 

“ Good-bye,” he repeated. “ There is a hansom at the other 
side of the road.” • 

And he turned his back and walked away firmly. Presently 
he turned into Fleet Street, and through the more crowded thor- 
oughfare placidly made his way. Around him was vice enough, 
and misery more than enough. The very incarnation of both 
touched him on either side, brushing past or cringing after, but 
he heeded them not. This darker side of humanity was no new 
thing to Samuel Crozier, and 'perhaps he was after all a hard- 
hearted man. I cannot judge him. He hummed a tune to him- 
self under his breath, and disregarded the story of the woman at 
his elbow who had not eaten a bite o’ bread for four days. Yet 
he had risked his good name, disregarded his obvious duty as 
a late officer in her Majesty’s service, and openly connived at 
the breaking of the law in order to lighten one of these burdens ; 
for the line of distinction between Holdsworth who drove away 
in a hansom, and the felon who sneaked back to his particular 


IMPULSE. 


187 


door-way clutching the penny he had earned by shutting the cab- 
door, was less marked than the former thought. 

Crozier seemed to be quite unconscious of having wrought a 
little good, of having lifted for a time at least the weight of mis- 
fortune that crushed one life, out of the thousands upon which 
the merry stars twinkled blithely that night— lives which no op- 
timist would dare to consider worth the living. There was no 
smile of conscious virtue on his face, no warmth of benevolence 
in his heart. He merely walked on, unobservant and indifferent, 
content and aimless, while the half -drunken woman with the 
piteous tale of starvation cursed him obscenely for his hardness. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

IMPULSE. 

So William Holdsworth escaped the clutches of the law. Early 
on the following morning he went down to Goldheath minus bag- 
gage, for which he wrote later. He walked home across the heath 
full of confidence, and blithe as the birds in spring, for his heart 
was a poor receptacle — care never nestled there long. His plans 
were not yet formed, but he felt in a vague way that England 
would not hold him. The escape of the previous evening, the 
excitement of those few minutes in Crozier’s rooms, followed by 
the chase through the narrow streets, perhaps also the old associ- 
ations awakened by the sight of Crozier, old memories of advent- 
ure recalled by the singer’s voice, cool and steady as it always was 
in time of peril, awakened within him the semi-dormant spirit of 
restlessness. 

This spirit was upon him now as’ he hurried through the keen 
morning air. But also the influence of Samuel Crozier was with 
him still ; the only influence that had ever remained with him for 
an appreciable space of time ; an influence exercised by no other 
man hitherto. 

The runaway sailor was grateful, and he imagined that his grati- 
tude was called forth only by the service rendered to him ten 
hours before ; but it was not so. The debt he acknowledged was 
that of a lifetime; the influence that subjugated him had not 


188 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


been acquired in a few minutes, by a single act ; it was the fruit 
of many deeds, the result of a great effort ; and it was the only 
good influence in William Holdsworth’s life. He carried it with 
him through the days that were to come, and in all human proba- 
bility was a better and a happier man for the burden of it. 

But as he walked across the heath his mind was filled with an- 
other thought not totally unconnected with Sam Crozier. The 
singer had told him in very plain language that Elma Valliant 
must not be molested by his attentions, and now that the spirit 
of adventure had hold of him (for it is like fever and ague, which 
may be allayed but never killed), he knew that he did not love 
her. In his strange, capricious nature there was a crooked desire 
at work which may perhaps have led to this conclusion by reason 
of the feeling that he was at liberty now to love and woo her 
(Sam Crozier having no further authority in the matter), and 
therefore the wish to do so was no longer so strong. The incen- 
tive of competition, or rather of pugnacity, no longer urged him 
to give other men trouble for his own amusement. 

• And in seeking to account for what followed, let us give 
him credit for good feeling, for a real honest desire to repair 
harm done. We cannot, or we do not, often give others credit 
for the best motives — in fact we usually assign the worst, with 
reason, you will say. Perhaps it is so. But let us give William 
Holdsworth the benefit of the doubt in this case ; let us pretend 
for once to believe that there is a little elementary, sedimentary 
good in human nature. Of course his action was impulsive ; the 
words he spoke to one who listened to them greedily enough 
were dictated by a mere passing influence, a flighty warmth of 
gratitude. But impulsive good is better than no good at all. 
Had he been given time to deliberate, it is probable that a pru- 
dent reticence would have been the result. But it happened that 
as he walked home that morning, with the excitement of the pre- 
vious day still thrilling through his being, with gratitude still 
warming his heart, and with the singer’s influence still upon him, 
he met Elma Valliant. Not only did he meet her, but circum- 
stances threw him into her individual society for some length of 
time. 

Taking advantage of his absence, Elma had bethought herself 
of driving over to see old Mr. and Mrs. Holdsworth, and had 
chosen this bright cold morning to do so. Had she seen Willy 


IMPULSE. 


189 


Holdsworth on the road in front of her, it is probable that she 
would have pulled up her self-willed pony and turned him round, 
but this chance of avoiding him was not afforded her. Her road 
ran at right angles to his, and he reached the corner before she 
did, but the sound of wheels made him turn, and the recognition 
was mutual and instantaneous. There was nothing for him to do 
but stand and wait for her at the cross-roads ; there was nothing 
for her but to drive on. 

He raised his hat with a grave smile, and with quick feminine 
instinct she gave a little sigh of relief as she acknowledged his 
salutation. She saw at once that a new humor was upon him — 
his mood leaned neither towards love-making nor merrymaking; 
he was therefore not dangerous, and might even be pleasant. His 
eyes were steadier, and his erect carriage firmer, but beyond these 
details there was something else — something vague and indefinite 
— which rendered him more manly than he had ever been in her 
sight before. 

They had not spoken since a certain evening when events had 
occurred in a conservatory such as may be of small account in a 
man’s life, while they leave a girl somewhat different, marking 
her existence with an immovable mile-stone which is almost a 
turning-point. 

She drew up with a little smile quite free from embarrassment, 
and held out her gauntleted hand. I wonder if any of us will 
ever quite understand a woman ! It seemed impossible that the 
last time these two had met he had made base use of his manly 
superiority of strength to kiss her against her will. Yet she re- 
membered each detail — even to a crushed flower and deranged 
lock of hair — better than he did, as she smiled innocently into 
his face. 

“This is an inglorious way of returning to the paternal roof,” 
she said, lightly. 

“ Yes,” he answered, after the fashion of a man who is speak- 
ing of one thing and thinking of another ; “yes, they will be sur- 
prised to see rne.” 

“You have come earlier than you intended, have you not?” 
she asked. 

“ Yes, Elma,” he said, and there was a new gravity in his voice 
which made her look suddenly at him, instead of towards the 
pony. 


190 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ I thought so,” she murmured, in a tone which invited him to 
proceed. 

“ I am off again,” he said, moving restlessly from one foot to 
the other ; “ I cannot stand this country-squire life any longer.” 

Elma stroked the back of her pony thoughtfully with the end 
of the whip, but made no comment. 

“ I am glad we met,” he added. “ I wanted to see you.” 

For a moment the girl was uneasy, then her eyes met his, and 
she saw that there was no cause for any such feeling. He made 
no attempt to explain his outburst of passion on the last occasion 
of their meeting, but simply ignored it. This method is scarcely 
recoramendable to young men of impressionable hearts, although 
in this exceptional case it was perhaps the best thing Holdsworth 
could have done. But, as a rule, it is very dangerous to ignore 
having once told a woman that ) t ou loved her. Apologize — 
tell lies — make excuses — humble yourself, but do not ignore it ! 
Whether she loves you or not, she will never forgive such a sin 
as that. 

“I have something to tell you,” he went on to say, moving 
away a few steps, and laying his hand upon the horse’s broad 
back where the whip had been a few moments before. “ Shall I 
tell you now — on the' king’s highway — or shall I wait till the in- 
spiration goes from me, and never tell you at all ?” he asked, with 
a slight smile in his blue eyes as they rested candidly on her 
puzzled young face. She raised her glance to his, meeting him 
kindly, sweetly, inscrutably. 

“ Perhaps you had better decide,” she said, incisively, “ so 
much depends upon what it is that you have to tell me.” 

He stroked the sleek pony reflectively, then without looking 
towards her he spoke with a certain continuous deliberation which 
allowed of no interruption. 

“ I do not know,” he said, “ what you have heard about me — 
about my past life, I mean. Probably a little truth, and a good 
many lies. I don’t want to know. But there are a few things I 
should like you to hear before I go away, because it often hap- 
pens that the truth is not so bad as uncontradicted exaggerations 
which may be only half believed. I won’t trouble you with de- 
tails. Many of them are not pleasant, and some there are which 
are better suppressed. People say, Elma, that there is no such 
thing as bad-luck. Never believe that, never believe that a man 


IMPULSE. 


191 


has only himself to blame for what comes to him ! There is 
something else at work — something raising or lowering his life, 
quite beyond his reach, quite outside his power. Call it by what 
name you like — Providence with a big P or luck with a small 1 — 
the result is the same as far as our lives are concerned. Mine has 
not been quite a success, I suppose. In fact, it has been an utter 
failure.” 

He laughed shortly, and defied her to contradict him by a 
quaintly humorous glance which was really somewhat pathetic. 

“ Is it not,” she suggested, “ rather premature to give a judg- 
ment yet?” 

“ I doubt it,” he replied, “ unless luck changes.” 

With ready tact she avoided raising a discussion respecting the 
much-maligned little word, which he repeated so often with a 
certain cynicism. Whatever she may have thought, she silently 
acquiesced in his theory that human lives are laid out upon a fa- 
talistic, immovable plan which no earthly influence can alter. 

“I can honestly say,” he continued, “ without thought of com- 
plaint or irreverence, that I have had luck dead against me from 
the beginning. Of course I have been to blame ; but really, 
Elma, really and truly, on my word as — let us say ‘ a gentleman ’ 
just for once, I have had consistent bad-luck all through, and peo- 
ple soon recognize an unlucky man. They won’t help him, and 
often they won’t employ him. But — there has been one man. 
In all these last ten years of steady progress downhill, I have 
only passed one man who made a grab at me. And he did more ; 
he came down a little, and tried to haul me up again. Time af- 
ter time he succeeded, time after time I slipped again ; but he 
never turned from me. He never lost patience, and never, while 
our lives were thrown together, gave up the attempt. But he 
grew hard — hard and unmerciful — he lost faith in me at last. 
Perhaps he is by nature what is called a hard man. But I know 
that he spares himself as little as he spares others. Things have 
been bad ; Elma, I have been farther down the hill than I like to 
think of when I am near you ; but if it had not been for that 
man I should not have been here now. I should not have had 
the chance that I have before me now, of trying my luck again. 
I was once a sailor — ” 

He stopped speaking. The reins which had hitherto been ly- 
ing loosely upon the pony’s back bad suddenly been drawn tight. 


192 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


He glanced at her, and saw a slight flush upon her cheeks. Her 
features were too still to be quite natural. 

“You. have guessed who it is,” he said, slowly. 

“Yes,” she answered, looking past him across the heath — 
“ Sam Crozier.” 

“ How do you know ?” he asked, sharply, with a ring of emo- 
tion in his voice which was very near akin to pain. “ What made 
you guess? Surely he has not told you.” 

“No,” she answered. “No. He has told me nothing. It 
was a mere guess.” 

“But there must have been something — something to make 
you guess” — suspiciously. 

“ It never occurred to me before this moment to think that 
you might have met before, but I have always noticed some 
points of resemblance. You hold yourselves in the same way, 
and — and you both use your hands quite differently from other 
men. I suppose it comes from having been sailors.” 

“ We were shipmates,” said Holdsworth, as if that explained 
everything. “ He has done more for me and attempted more 
than any man on earth ; and I suppose it is the natural conse- 
quence that, now that it is too late, I would sooner have Sam 
Crozier’s esteem than that of any man. At first he began by 
liking me, I honestly believe. When I got into trouble he pitied 
me and still believed in me ; now he simply despises me.” 

“ Are you not,” she asked, softly, “ making out the worst case 
you can against yourself, Willy ? I do not think that Mr. — that 
he despises you. He is too just to despise any man.” 

“ It is his justice that does it,” answered Holdsworth, with an 
awkward laugh. “Unfortunately he has a right to treat me as 
he does. He cannot understand weakness of any description — 
and I suppose I am weak. I know that I cannot rely upon my- 
self. The desire to do the proper thing is there right enough, 
but when the time comes I somehow cannot do it. Luck is 
against me, and ” — here he shrugged his shoulders — “ I suppose 
I am weak. At least, Crozier thinks that I am ; I can see that.” 

Elma was puzzled. This ex-sailor was beyond her grasp of 
character. He had puzzled a much deeper thinker than she, for 
Crozier had striven in vain to get at the man’s real inner self. 
There was much good, and really very little that was bad in Will- 
iam Holdsworth, but the blend was so irregular that evil seemed 


IMPULSE. 


193 


to predominate. He made the most of his bad qualities, as un- 
ambitious men are in the habit of doing; and with his virtues he 
made a very poor show. Moreover, he was disappointed in life, 
and somewhat bored ; taking a queer delight in boasting of his 
own failures. 

“ Holdsworth,” Crozier had once said to him from the quarter- 
deck when they were both in oil-skins, which sometimes covers 
gold-lace and its subtle differences at sea, “you want ballast. 
You would be better for it in fair weather as well as in foul.” 

A few words spoken in kindly praise — shouted, rather, for a 
typhoon raged round them, and the air was seething — at the suc- 
cessful termination of a wild feat aloft which made Holdsworth’s 
name known on every ship of the China squadron. “ The fellow 
who cut away the Willow-wren's fore-topmast,” they said, on the 

quarter-deck. “ The d d fool who went aloft in a typhoon,” 

they grumbled in the forecastle. 

“I do not think that he is a hard man,” pleaded Elma, examin- 
ing the lash of her whip. 

“ He was a strict disciplinarian at sea.” 

“ But is that the same thing ?” asked the girl. “ A disciplina- 
rian is as hard upon himself as upon other men.” 

“Yes — he never spared himself. But he does not make the 
least allowance for difference of temperament. He forgets that 
other men are not like himself — not cool and self-suppressing — ” 

“ I do not think that you understand him,” interrupted she, 
thoughtfully. 

“ He does not understand me.” 

Then the quick-witted girl began to suspect that the sailor’s 
words were not prompted by ill-feeling. He spoke against his 
former officer in a peculiar, insincere way, as if seeking to lay the 
blame upon another for something that had come between them. 
She felt that the spirit of enmity had no place here. There was 
another influence at work, and instinctively she hit very near the 
mark. There was in her mind no definite thought that Holds- 
worth was suffering under the sting of unsatisfied gratitude. 

“ But,” said she, “ you tell me that he has done a great deal 
for you — that he has helped you, and — and that you are grateful 
to him.” 

She was watching his face now, and saw the contraction of his 
lips ; the pained, dissatisfied gleam in his blue eyes as he looked 
13 


194 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


across the heath, seeing nothing. And with a woman s quick 
warm sympathy she pitied him. She knew then, and never af- 
terwards deviated from the conviction, that Sam Crozier had made 
a mistake. The singer, in his strong manliness, treated Holds- 
worth as his own equal : treated him as a man strong in his con- 
victions, steady in his purpose ; giving him credit for two quali- 
ties which he was without. She felt that there were passages in 
the lives of this man and of Samuel Crozier of which she knew 
nothing, and of which she would in all probability never learn the 
details; but instinctive judgment (a woman’s monopoly) told her 
that by some warp the better nature of William Holdsworth had 
never had fair play. 

“ Yes,” he answered, gravely, “ he has done more for me than 
I can tell you of; more than he thinks, but not more than I real- 
ize. And what is the result from his point of view ? He looks 
upon me now, at this moment, as an outcast, a hopeless vagabond, 
a failure. He will never believe to his dying day that I have 
really tried to do better — not from instinctive desires, not from 
fear of the law, but in order to show him that his pains and his 
— great — kindness have not been thrown away. Whenever I try 
to show him this I fail. Whenever I come to him, it is not to 
hold out my hand and tell him that he can take it without fear 
or shame; it is to ask his help. Only last night, Elma — not 
twelve hours ago — I — was forced to go to him. He never sus- 
pected what it cost me to do so ; he never cared whether I 
thought of killing myself first or not. All he knew and all he 
saw was an outcast, a runaway, a criminal, and he never cared to 
look deeper.” 

He stopped and looked towards her suddenly, surprising a soft 
and almost tearful look in her eyes. He was telling it simply as 
a story — a mere relation of facts ; but she saw the weary pathos 
of it, and the old time-worn limit that foils all human attempts 
to make human life a better thing than it is. 

“ It is a long story,” he said, apologetically ; “ I don’t know 
why I should trouble you with it.” 

u Go on,” she answered ; “I am listening.” 

“ Yet,” continued Holdsworth, “ he 'helped me. He deliberate- 
ly broke the law to save me. And as usual he succeeded — Cro- 
zier always succeeds in the end. When I tried to thank him he 
shut me up — brutally. When I talked of gratitude he laughed.” 


IMPULSE. 


195 


The sailor laughed bitterly, and waited for her comment. 

“ How utterly,” she said, at length, very gently — “ how utterly 
you have misunderstood each other !” 

“ I suppose he is right,” continued Holdsworth, after a pause ; 
“I suppose he is quite right. Of what possible value can my 
thanks be to him ? What difference can it make to such a man 
as Crozier whether a vagabond be grateful to him or hate him ?” 

Ah Vanity, Vanity ! The wise old Preacher caught yon cen- 
turies ago. And still you flit about among human motives, touch- 
ing them all, branding them all with your evil mark ! 

So Elma learned it at last. At last she reached the root of the 
affair, the base of the widening gulf that lay between two brave 
men. And there, of course, she found Vanity. 

“ He told me,” continued the sailor, “ that he did not do it for 
my sake, but for the sake of the ship.” 

Elma almost smiled, the detail was so like Crozier. He had an 
aggravating way of screening himself behind a false motive. He 
might profess to have helped his shipmate for old associations’ 
sake ; he might even persuade himself that his motive was no 
higher; but Elma thought she knew better. She knew Samuel 
Crozier too well to believe that. 

“ And you believed him ?” she asked, incredulously. 

“ Yes ; he meant it.” 

Elma shook her head with petulant impatience. 

“Some day,” he went on to say, “he will mention my name, 
and you may have an opportunity of telling him what I have told 
you. I should like to tell all the world, because people do not 
know what Samuel Crozier is. You may tell every one that a 
scamp once said that he was the finest and the best man, the 
ablest seaman and the truest gentleman that he ever met. And, 
Elma, remember that scamps see the best side of human nature. 
If you should ever speak of me, don’t tell him of any protesta- 
tions of mine. Simply say that I have gone away to try again. 
If ever I come back it will not be as, what Tom calls, ‘ a returned 
empty.’ I shall come back with clean hands, or not at all. Now, 
he does not refuse to shake hands, but he never offers to.” 

He smiled vaguely, and moved away a little with his hand up- 
raised towards his hat. But Elma stopped him. 

“ Shall I not see you again before you go ?” 

“ No !” 


196 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


She held out her hand with a pretty little air of bravado. 

“ Good-bye, then, and good-luck.” 

He returned and took her fingers within his. 

“God bless you, Elnia!” he mumbled, awkwardly ; “you are 
more charitable than Crozier.” 

Then he raised his hat and left her. She turned and drove 
home slowly, meditating over men and their ways. A week ago 
this man had told her, with all appearance of sincerity and truth, 
that he loved her ; and she knew now, without shred of doubt or 
misconception, that he had never loved her at all. This was the 
text of her meditations. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE BUSHEL RAISED. 

Lady Firton’s ball was, as usual, fixed for the Thursday after 
Easter. This function was an annual affair, and young couples 
wondered in that suggestive and dangerously melancholy manner 
which is the result of supper and bad air how many times they 
had danced together in her ladyship’s drawing-room. 

Ah, those balls ! How many a tragedy has worked itself out 
while the musicians rubbed their hands together and rested during 
the pauses ! How many a breaking heart has whirled round a 
brilliantly lighted room, and how many bright eyes have grown 
brighter or suddenly dim in sequestered corridors and twilight 
conservatory ! How many tears have been brushed aside with 
tiny lace handkerchiefs never woven for else than ornament! 
It is better, however, to take these entertainments as they are. 
The smiling faces must assuredly belong to happy careless hearts. 
The brilliant toilets, the gay light flimsy dresses must of course 
cover healthy young bodies untouched by disease or illness. 
Young, happy, careless, thoughtless — let them dance. Let hand 
clasp hand, and arm encircle waist. Let the old buffers like 
you and me, mon ami, lean against the wall and talk to the dowa- 
gers, without seeking to look beneath the surface of things. Only 
— only there is an uncomfortable memory behind this pen. Not 
ancient history by any means — not an old-time story improved 


THE BUSHEL RAISED. 


197 


by the crust of years — for it has lived only twelve hours — a few 
short night and morning hours ago. There was the usual brilliant 
room. The gay dresses were there, and the smiling faces. I did 
not know many of them — only half a dozen or so. And yet I know 
of tears — two of those young faces were wet with them during 
the evening. And the other side— the black-coated side of the 
question ! I see a life made and another marred. All this be- 
tween the conventional hours of nine o’clock post meridian and 
two in the morning. Assuredly it is better to keep to the surface 
of things. 

To Lady Firton’s ball was usually bidden the latest literary star, 
and a choice selection of lions. This was not because her lady- 
ship (a sensible little woman, with a romantic heart of her own) 
loved lions, but because she recognized the wisdom of providing 
them, just as much as she knew that ices and lemonade were 
necessary. 

Elma Valliant was one of her ladyship’s most reliable young 
ladies. She always came to town immediately before the ball, 
and spent two or three days among flowers and carpetless rooms, 
making herself generally useful. The squire and Mrs. Yalliant 
usually stayed with other friends, and appeared among the first 
arrivals. 

Tom, of course, was invited, and Sam Crozier was an habitue 
of the house, and a special friend of the clever and successful 
diplomatist, Sir Thomas Firton, who was reputed to speak eleven 
languages. 

On this occasion, however, Tom Valliant refused. To Lady 
Firton he made a conventional excuse. To Crozier he laughingly 
declared that his dancing days were done, and to Elma he would 
say nothing serious at all, merely turning off her questions with a 
joke. With the crowd Crozier arrived. He made a semi-sarcastic 
boast of passing anywhere with the crowd, among which, how- 
ever, he was never a nonentity, try as he might. 

Through the crush he ultimately made his way to Elma’s side, 
and as he shook hands noticed that she was wearing white ste- 
phanotis, sent to her, no doubt, by Tom. 

“ Are you really alone ?” she asked. “ Has Tom not come ?” 

“ No ; he has not come.” 

“ Why, I wonder ?” 

“ I don’t know at all,” he answered, carelessly, for he thought 


198 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


that Elma knew more about it than himself. “May I have a 
dance?” he continued, holding out his hand for her card. 

With a gracious but mechanical little bow she gave it to him, 
and watched his face with a coquettish smile of amusement as 
he studied it gravely. 

“ There is nothing — ” he said, offering to return the card — 
“ nothing left.” 

She allowed him a few seconds to express his disappointment, 
but he said nothing, merely standing before her in silence, hold- 
ing out the card. 

“All those,” she said, confidentially, at length, “marked T. V. 
are at your disposal — to choose from, I mean.” 

She turned away from him to speak to some one else, leaving 
her programme in his possession, and he heard her say that she 
had no dances left disengaged. 

“ Did you keep these for Tom ?” he asked, incautiously, when 
she turned to him again. 

“Yes,” she auswered, indignantly, “but he has not come to 
claim them ; so,” she added, “ you may take your choice.” 

Without a word he gave her back the card. Over the deli- 
cately traced letters, T. Y. he had on all three occasions written 
deeply the initials S. C. 

She saw what he had done, and slipped the card into the front 
of her dress, with a little laugh expressive of suggested remon- 
strance. 

“ Is that all right ?” he asked, gravely, before moving away 
to shake hands with Sir Thomas Firton. 

“ No,” she answered, in the same tone, with, however, a little 
twinkle of mischief lurking beneath her lashes. “ No, I should 
think it is wrong.” 

And with a slow smile and murmured “ Thank you ” he went 
away, moving through the crowd laboriously, for he had many 
greetings to acknowledge and exchange. This he did with quiet 
geniality, and a sublime unconsciousness of being the most pop- 
ular man in the room. 

Later, when he came to claim his first dance, he found Elma 
in the same dangerous humor; coquettish and kind by turns, 
sweetly grave and mischievously gay alternately. 

“Why did Tom not come?” she asked, imperiously, as she 
took the singer’s arm. The question implied plainly that she 


THE BUSHEL RAISED. 


199 


had by no means forgotten that this waltz belonged by rights to 
her cousin. 

“Goodness knows,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders 
hopelessly. 

“ Cest possible, but — do you?" 

“ No ; I have not the least idea. He does not care much for 
dancing, I believe.” 

They began waltzing, and the floor was crowded, so the con- 
versation dropped for a few moments. 

“ Have you seen him to-day ?” she asked, presently. 

“ Yes, I saw him for a few minutes.” 

“ In town ?” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

“ At Myra’s ?” she persisted. 

“ Ye-es,” he answered, with some slight hesitation. 

At this moment the crowd suddenly increased. It was almost 
a block, but Crozier detected an outlet, and escaped through it, 
reversing and steering admirably. When they were upon a 
clearer floor he laughed. 

“ They seem to be rather jammed in that corner,” he observed, 
in a lighter tone, which had the effect of driving away the 
gravity which had come into Elma’s eyes. 

“Yes,” she answered, “we are well out of it, thanks to your 
seamanlike manoeuvre. I suppose that is part of your discarded 
profession ?” 

“ What — getting out of a tight place ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ It is better never to get in,” he replied, gravely. 

“ By-the-way,” she said, with apparent lack of sequence, “ do 
you know that Willy Holdsworth has gone away again ?” 

“ The young fellow,” he suggested, with innocent interrogation, 
“ who lived with his father and mother near Goldheath ?” 

She did not answer, but looked up with peculiarly unsteady lips 
into his eyes. He could not understand at all the expression of 
her face. It was a strange mixture of suppressed laughter and 
something else — something very different, which he could not 
define. 

“You are splendid,” she said, with a faint suggestion of re- 
proach ; “ simply splendid.” 

For once in his life he was taken aback — all aback, he would 


200 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


have said, technically. After a pause, however, he looked down 
quizzically at his own apparel. 

“Yes,” he murmured, complacently, “I think my get-up is 
very nice.” 

She did not laugh, but merely gave the faintest of smiles as a 
tribute to his wit. 

“ If ever,” she said, “ I am overburdened with a secret ; if I 
feel that I must tell somebody or — or die, I will choose you; 
you are like a well.” 

“ With Truth hidden in it ?” he asked. 

“ Yes,” she answered, guilelessly, “ most certainly ; with Truth 
hidden in it.” 

“Thank you,” he said, airily ; “but please explain. You must 
remember that I am a little dense. I am not a quick thinker — 
like Tom.” 

There was contradiction written in her eyes; but she said 
nothing for some moments. At last she made a little movement, 
dragged slightly upon his arm, which he promptly and correctly 
read as a suggestion to stop. They passed out of the room into 
a smaller apartment where all was quiet. 

“ Willy Holdsworth,” she then said, “ spoke to me before he 
went away.” 

“ Oh !”— doubtfully. 

“He gave me a slight sketch of the career — the downward 
career — of a rolling stone.” 

“ Rash man,” suggested Crozier, uncomfortably. 

She looked at him gravely, almost impatiently. 

“ I have acknowledged,” she said, “ that you are splendid ; is 
it necessary for you to keep it up any longer 

“ That depends,” he answered, unabashed, with a deprecating 
smile, “ upon how much he told you.” 

“ I think he told me everything — suppressing only a few de- 
tails unfit for my delicate attention.” 

Still Crozier looked embarrassed and somewhat doubtful. 

“ You can dispense with the bushel ” — looking at him with 
grave meaning. 

“ It is an article,” he returned, “ of which I make little use. My 
light may flicker, but it is fully exposed to the public gaze.” 

She shook her head in contradiction. 

“ That is hardly the pure and simple truth. On several occa- 


I 


THE BUSHEL RAISED. 


201 


sions I have come suddenly upon good that has been done by 
stealth. You need not deny it. I like doing it very much in- 
deed.” 

He moved restlessly, and looked round the room in a vague, 
smiling way. The exhausted dancers were now appearing in 
couples seeking seats. 

“Please do not look so very solemn,” he pleaded, in a lowered 
voice. “These observant people will think that we have been 
quarrelling, or — ” 

He stopped suddenly. 

“Or what?” 

“ Or boring each other.” 

Elma laughed, but made no further answer. For some mo- 
ments they sat without speaking, then Crozier moved briskly, 
drawing in his legs and sitting forward. 

“ This is not ball-room behavior,” he remarked. “ We should 
be talking weather very gravely, or nonsense noisily. At all events, 
we ought to smile vapidly and look pleased with ourselves.” 

Ignoring these weighty suggestions, she spoke in the same 
serious strain. 

“ He sent a message to you, Sam. That is why I mentioned 
his name.” 

“ Indeed !” — with some interest. “ What was it ?” 

“ He asked me to tell you that he has gone away to try again ; 
that is all.” 

Crozier brushed aside his mustache by a quick movement of 
his hand, first to one side and then to the other. It was a habit 
with him upon the platform, or when he wished to think deeply. 
He always began to sing with that quick movement of the hand. 

“ Nothing more ?” he asked. 

“ No ; nothing more.” 

He sat gazing thoughtfully across the room at nothing in par- 
ticular, while in his deep-set eyes there came a melancholy, dis- 
satisfied expression, such as always shows itself upon the face of 
a man who is looking back over a past that might have been im- 
proved. Of course we all have such a view behind us. Cela va 
sans dire. But how many of us look, and how many recognize 
the mistakes that have been made? There was no actual re- 
morse in Crozier’s heart. Indeed, he would have acted in the 
same way in like circumstances again. It was an unfortunate 


202 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


chance — that was all — that a strong man should have become 
the benefactor of a weak one who was no coward. With cour- 
age Samuel Crozier expected to find steadfastness, and found it 
not. From him Holdsworth looked for a tolerance unnatural in 
a self-judging, self-suppressing man. The disappointment was 
mutual, and its influence stronger upon the characters of the two 
sailors than one would have imagined. It almost seemed that 
they had not met upon the broad highway of life by mere acci- 
dent. There was something more than chance in the drawing 
together of these two men — both born on Goldbeath — upon the 
high seas. 

We must simply acknowledge that human influence goes for 
naught in this existence. Man’s work unto man is nothing, else 
why should Crozier have failed in his attempt, pure enough and 
disinterested, to benefit a straggler upon the highway ? Why 
should they have parted in haste in the Blackfriars’ Bridge Road 
never to meet again — never to learn that each had done some 
good unto the other, that the misunderstanding between their 
finite hearts was also finite ? 

Elma knew that there was woman’s work to do here — for 
women were most assuredly intended to patch up man’s faulty 
nature, to bring men together and soften the grating angles. 
But she recoiled before the task, which was utterly beyond her 
powers. She could only tell Samuel Crozier what had happened. 
To influence him directly was more than she could accomplish, 
though she almost felt herself within reach of the misunder- 
standing. She could almost lay her hand upon the fault, and 
say, “This or that have you done wrong;” but something held 
her back — some strange shyness. And so she attempted nothing. 

Presently there was a movement among the guests, and Cro- 
zier rose from his seat, offering his arm> In a Cinderella dance 
men seek their partners early, and so there is no time to be lost. 

As they crossed the room together Crozier looked down at his 
companion, and said, in an explanatory tone : 

“ There is much good in Holdsworth, I am sure ; but somehow 
he has been unfortunate. The good has not yet had an opportu- 
nity of coming out.” 

She made no answer ; indeed, she could not do so, because her 
partner for the next dance was standing before her. 

They did not again talk of William Holdsworth during the 


THE BUSHEL RAISED. 


' 203 


evening. There were other subjects which interested them, and 
when they parted at the end of their last dance together, they did 
so merrily and unconcernedly. She upbraided him for laziness 
in going home so early, and he laughingly replied that there was 
now nothing to retain him at the ball, which compliment she ac- 
knowledged with a gay nod. 

There was no slightest premonition, no instinctive foreknowl- 
edge that they were to meet again before the dawn of the next 
day. As usual, Crozier was gravely ready to fall into any humor 
that might be influencing her ; as usual, she was gay and incom- 
prehensible. 

He elbowed his way through the throng with the little half- 
coquettish nod and the glance of the defiant eyes still in his 
memory, and he did not know that she was watching him while 
she talked to her partner. 

Without attracting undue attention he made his way out of 
the house. He never quite defined the feeling that prompted 
him to leave Lady Firton’s so early. Such a proceeding was 
contrary to custom, for he was not a blase man at all, and being 
an enthusiastic dancer as well as a keeper of very late hours, he 
was usually among the last to leave. The cheery little hostess 
did not fail to notice his early departure, for she had counted 
upon his remaining to the second informal supper after the 
guests had left. 

He had a vague intention of “looking up” Tom Valliant — not 
such a difficult task in their small bohemian world as one would 
imagine. 

When he had passed down the broad stone steps into the dark 
square he found A long file of deserted cabs. The men were con- 
gregated together in the middle of the road, and in a moment the 
singer saw the reason of it. To the eastward, over the denser 
parts of London, there hovered in the sky a shimmering glow of 
light. 

With that easy sense of intercourse with a lower class which 
most men learn at sea, Crozier joined the group. 

“ A fire ?” he said, interrogatively. 

“ Yessir,” answered a man near to him, “and a big un, too.” 

The sky was all rosy, while the glow rose and fell unsteadily. 
Observing this, a young cabman took his pipe from his lips and 
expectorated energetically. 


204 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ See it jumpin’ !” he observed. “ That shows it’s near.” 

“ It’s in the Strand, that’s my opinion,” said a gruff voice in 
the background. 

“I believe it is,” rejoined CrOzier; “somewhere near Bratton 
Street. I am going in that direction — who will drive me? — a 
hansom, I mean.” 

“ I’m your man, Mr. Crozier,” said a young fellow who, with 
the keenness of his race, had recognized the singer ; “ I’m first on 
the rank, and a good horse too.” 

Crozier followed the cab-driver, and in a few minutes was roll- 
ing through quiet streets towards the Strand. He had directed 
the man to drive to Myra’s, and proceeded to light the inevitable 
cigar — no easy task in a brisk south-easterly breeze. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE FIRE. 

Crozier was right. The fire was in Bratton Street. More- 
over, it was at Myra’s. Fortunately the theatre traffic had been 
disposed of before that stout lady began raking out her grill with 
a crooked poker. 

Mishaps of all descriptions have a peculiar way of appearing 
almost impossible before the event, and absurdly easy after. The 
front of the grill fell out, and the burning coals rolled upon the 
floor. One reached as far as the curtain of the inner bar, which 
blazed up at once. In a few moments it was wrenched from its 
rings by Tom Yalliant from within, but the thin, heavily var- 
nished wood-work was already alight. Still it would have been 
quite possible to pass unhurt through the blazing door-way. But 
Tom did not attempt it. Through the smoke and flame the occu- 
pants of the outer bar, with whom was now a policeman, saw him 
return to Syra. The girl was a prisoner behind the curved bar, 
surrounded by brilliant bottles, decanters, and glasses. Against 
the little door-way at the far end of the counter, the flap of which 
Syra had already raised, was a heavy box containing bottles of 
mineral water, and this she was in vain attempting to push aside. 
When she did not come to his side, Tom glanced over his shoul- 


THE FIRE. 


205 


der and saw the reason of her delay. Then he laughed — actually 
laughed, with the smoke and flames rising all round him. 

“ Wait a second!” he cried, and leaving the burning curtain on 
the floor, he went to her rescue. 

In the mean time the policeman was bravely fighting in the 
outer bar, but the fire spread terribly. A living cinder had fallen 
among a pile of newspapers beneath the counter, and these were 
now blazing, while the thin wood-work crackled. The man had 
nothing but his water-proof cape, and with this he was endeavor- 
ing to stifle the flames, but his hands were badly burned, and he 
was half stupefied and blinded by the acrid smoke that came from 
the varnished wood. 

Myra it was who, standing behind the policeman, still grasping 
the crooked poker, saw that the two occupants of the inner bar 
could not pass out because the floor was alight. 

“ You cannot get through now,” she shrieked. “ Go back — go 
up-stairs !” 

“Yes,” cried the policeman, as he staggered back baffled and 
blinded, “ yes, go back — go up-stairs !” 

Seizing his arm, Myra dragged the man out into the street. 
The outer bar was no longer tenable. Already there was a cor- 
don of policemen forming a semicircle round the blazing house, 
and keeping back the excited crowd. 

“ Is there anybody in the house?” asked an inspector, hurriedly. 

“Yes,” answered Myra, gasping; “there’s two. They’ve gone 
up-stairs.” 

The inspector stepped back and looked up anxiously at the 
windows. Through those on the first floor came a dull red gleam, 
showing that the flames had penetrated the ceiling of the ground- 
floor. Then he spoke a few words to a policeman near him, who 
immediately pushed his way through the crowd, and ran up the 
street in the direction of Covent Garden. 

The inspector returned to Myra, who stood silently wringing 
her hands in the semicircle formed by the policemen. 

“ Have you much spirit in cask in the house ?” he asked. 

“Yes. There’s forty gallons of whiskey in the cellar under 
the bar ; and there’s over a hundred dozen of different spirits in 
the two bars and the cellar.” 

The inspector tugged at his chin-strap, and glanced uneasily up 
and down the street. 


206 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Any paraffine ?” he inquired, sharply. 

“ No !” 

“ Nor gunpowder ?” 

“ No ! What would I be doing with gunpowder?” 

A hoarse shout at the corner where Bratton Street joined the 
Strand interrupted them. This was immediately recognized by 
the crowd, and greeted with a cheer. The crowd fell back, and 
the first engine, a “ steam,” with gleaming brass funnel, pulled up 
with a rattle of chains. The men were off before the horses had 
recovered themselves, and in an incredibly short space of time the 
hose was run out, while two men ran with a lighter pipe to the 
nearest hydrant. The crowd cheered again. They were getting 
excited, and the inspector sent a messenger for more men. In a 
few moments three more engines arrived, and suddenly the as- 
sembled multitude raised a great ringing cheer, which completely 
drowned the hoarse grunting of the steam-engine, which was now 
at work, literally jumping at each throb of the pump. 

The reason of the shout was that Tom Valliant had appeared 
at the second story window. Some broken glass falling at his 
feet apprised the inspector of this, and he stepped back into the 
middle of the street. The window was small, and Tom was 
breaking away the frame for greater convenience in getting out. 
When the cheer had died away, a dozen hoarse voices were raised, 
each shouting different instructions. The inspector of police was 
now placed in a secondary position by the arrival of a district 
chief of the fire brigade. The nearest escape had been sent for some 
time ago, but there were as yet no signs of its approach. A few 
minutes more and the two occupants of the small room upon the 
second floor would be compelled to choose between a jump into 
the blankets already awaiting them, and a retreat to the third floor. 

At this moment a fireman approached his chief and spoke for 
some moments with him. 

“ Well, you can try it,” said the chief at length, and he turned 
to make a sign to Tom to remain where he was for a few minutes 
more. Almost immediately the fireman reappeared. He had in 
his hand a coil of rope sufficiently stout to bear the weight of 
two or three persons. The police had now formed a double 
cordon across the street, completely blocking the traffic, while 
behind their dark forms extended a sea of anxious, eager faces, 
upturned to the flames that lit them up luridly. 


THE FIRE. 


207 


It seemed almost impossible to throw a rope from the street 
up to the window where Tom Valliant and Syra were waiting, but 
the fireman was an old Dover pier-head hand, who had not thrown 
ropes for five years by day and night in all winds and weathers 
in vain. 

He now mounted on the level top of a manual engine, which 
quivered and throbbed beneath his feet. Then with the old fa- 
miliar “ Stand by !” he adjusted the coils. Looking up, he rapid- 
ly measured the distance, and swinging back his whole body, he 
threw the rope. It whistled through the smoke-laden air, freeing 
its snake-like coils as it flew. 

“ Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Bravo !” 

With one coil to spare, it fell clean into the window, and Tom 
Valliant caught the end. He disappeared into the room for a 
moment and secured the rope. In the mean time the fireman had 
leaped from the manual engine. The rope had to be drawn taut 
in a slanting direction up the hill. Had it been allowed to hang 
straight down from the window, not only would descent by it 
have been impossible, but it would have been burned in a mo- 
ment, because the flames were darting out of the large ground- 
floor window, and the frames of those on the first floor were burn- 
ing, the glass having long ago fallen. 

A hundred willing hands grasped the rope and drew it tight. 
A man of ordinary strength could now descend without much 
risk, hand-under-hand, swinging in mid-air. It was merely a mat- 
ter of unusual tension on the arms for a few minutes; many 
school-boys would have been willing to undertake it for the fun 
of the thing. 

The upturned faces worked and twitched convulsively, many 
unemotional men talked hurriedly to themselves, some shouted 
aloud, and others spoke to those around them and were in nowise 
heeded. 

They could see that Tom Valliant was explaining to the girl, 
who had remained singularly calm throughout, how she should 
cling to him. Then she appeared to refuse to burden him with 
her weight, which could not, however, have been very great, be- 
cause, although above the medium height, she was slightly formed. 
She shook her head and appeared to be urging him to go alone. 
They both leaned out of the window and looked up the street, 
evidently in the hope that the fire-escape might be in sight. 


208 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


Then the chief of the fire brigade raised his voice for the first 
time, with all the science of a man accustomed to making himself 
heard. 

“ Come on, come on, my girl !” be shouted ; “you have only a 
minute more !” And the crowd heard every word. 

Valliant was seen to speak hurriedly, and at last it would seem 
that the girl gave in. Again he instructed her how to hold 
firmly on to him, and then climbed half out of the window, with 
one leg in and the other out. The crowd was silent now, and 
only the throb of the engines rose above the steady roar of the 
fire, while occasionally a distant whistle rang out as the firemen 
called for a greater pressure of water on their hose. 

Valliant turned sidewise and stretched out his arms to Syra in 
order to help her out of the window. With his assistance she 
crept out and took her place beside him. 

“ That’s right,” cried the chief of the firemen. “ Never fear.” 

Valliant’s evident intention was to slip off the window-sill and 
swing from the rope. That first wrench on his arms would be 
the worst. Syra was to place her arms round him ; one over his 
shoulder and the other beneath, clasping her hands firmly to- 
gether, while he gave her what support he could with his legs. 

She had actually thrown her arms round him, and was sitting 
on the very verge of the window-sill, when Valliant suddenly cried 
out something which was unintelligible to the crowd, although 
the words sounded like “ Look out, Syra !” 

Suddenly abandoning his intention of grasping the rope with 
both hands, he half turned and clutched vaguely and unsteadily 
at the framework of the window. The movement overbalanced 
the girl, whose hold round him was for the moment loosened, as 
he had fallen back, crushing her hands between himself and the 
brickwork of the window. 

Before any one could realize what had happened, there was a 
sickening crash upon the wet pavement. Two policemen rushed 
forward, but their inspector motioned them to stop. 

“ A blanket,” he said, shortly and sharply, “ or a sheet. You 
must not try to lift her.” 

Very tenderly the three big men knelt on the streaming pave- 
ment. For a moment there was a great hush, as the awe-struck 
multitude surged backward and forward. Syra lay very still, and 
made no sound. Silently she had fallen ; silently she lay as the 


THE EIRE. 


209 


three men bent over her — for they were merely three men now, 
not two policemen in the presence of their superior officer. The 
dainty figure in its close-fitting black dress was slightly twisted 
to one side, the rounded arras and deft fingers were limp and 
nerveless. The white, immobile face bore no sign of pain. There 
was no trace to tell that fear had crisped the features. They 
were indeed perfect now in their great repose, for the sweet mouth 
was no longer twisted sidewise and upward as if existence were 
an effort. The effort was not needed now, for Syra was dead. 
The infinite tenderness with which she was raised and carried 
away was futile, because earthly pain was hers no more. 

In the mean time Tom Yalliant had remained for a moment 
balancing upon the window-sill. Then he fell backward into the 
room. He must have recovered partial consciousness almost at 
once, for he was standing at the window the next minute. With 
one hand he held mechanically to the window-frame, while the 
other was pressed to his breast. His face was pallid, and his eyes 
quite dull and lifeless. The effort was nothing more than phys- 
ical, and it seemed as if he did not know where he was. The glare 
was very great now, and he was visible to all. From that surge 
of frantic faces a thousand eyes watched his slightest movement. 

The chief of the fire brigade looked anxiously up the street. 
“ D n that escape !” he muttered. “ Is it never coming?” 

His question was answered by a distant shout, and the tall, 
weird machinery of the ladder appeared at the summit of the 
short hill. A hundred on-lookers ran to meet it, shouting as they 
went, and pointing to the window where Tom Yalliant was. He 
had now fallen forward across the sill. 

As the escape neared the house it began to sway and totter 
from side to side, and the crowd looked up apprehensively. 
Then suddenly a mighty cheer arose. The tall red ladder was 
swaying because a man was already half-way up it, running light- 
ly up the rungs without, however, touching them with his fingers. 
His hands were round the uprights — a way we are taught at sea. 

The average Englishman is an unemotional being, but he is 
not devoid of that spice of life which is vaguely called the devil. 
He requires, however, the society of his fellow-men and the spirit 
of emulation to raise that devil. It is this peculiarity that makes 
him a good sailor and an excellent soldier; excitement brings out 
a sudden fierce energy, while the cool, independent man is behind 
14 


210 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


it somewhere ready for an emergency. Nevertheless, it often 
happens that a crowd of Englishmen is no more self-contained 
and no wiser than a crowd of any other nationality, surprising 
though this may be. 

A trifling incident now drove this mass of people, collected in 
Bratton Street, almost frantic with excitement. This was noth- 
ing more than the mere fact that the man who was upon the 
escape in certain peril of his life was an English gentleman in 
evening dress, with a white flower gleaming in his button-hole. 

But one of the firemen, an old blue-jacket, had caught a glimpse 
of his face, and saw something more there than a “ swell ” in 
dress clothes. 

“Boys,” he yelled, hoarsely, turning to the crowd, “that’s a 
sailor.” 

The cry was passed from mouth to mouth, “He’s a sailor ! he’s 
a sailor !” and immediately there arose a hundred voices encour- 
aging him. 

“ Sticjc to it, Jack !” they cried. “ Go it, my hearty ! God 
bless ye !” 

“ Ay, d n him,” muttered the man in charge of the escape, 

as he looked up to take his instructions from Sam Crozier far 
above his bead ; “ he’s a sailor, or else he wouldn’t ha’ been up 
there before me.” 

The escape was cautiously wheeled nearer to the house, from 
which the flames were now shooting outward in forked tongues. 
From the window where Tom Valliant’s inanimate body was still 
visible there shone a red glare. The fire had reached the second 
story, and at any moment the floor might fall in, adding fuel to 
the flaming, sputtering mass of spirit-soaked wood on the ground 
where the bar had once been. From the opposite side of the 
street the firemen were playing into the second story windows in 
a vain endeavor to save the floor. 

Perched upon the top of the escape, with his legs twined firmly 
among the rungs, Sam Crozier signed with his right hand to those 
below to move the ladder nearer to the burning house. Nearer 
still ! Right into the flames ! Past his head seethed and roared 
unheeded the glittering column of water. So great was its force 
that if the fireman made the slightest mistake, swerving to one 
side and hitting him, the shock would undoubtedly have stunned 
him, causing him to lose his hold, 


THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 


211 


The crowd saw Crozier leaning towards the window with out- 
stretched arms, and then there was a tremendous crash, shaking 
the very earth. A column of smoke and flame seemed to envelop 
him, aud he was lost to sight. The second floor had fallen in. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 

For a moment there was a dead silence, and all stood breath- 
less, while the fire roared and cracked. Then the group of fire- 
men at the foot of the escape shouted aloud, and the crowd of 
on-lookers, peering over each other’s shoulders, saw Crozier stand- 
ing among them with the rescued man in his arms. 

“ He is a friend of mine,” said the singer to the police-inspect- 
or, who had come forward. “ I will take him home. He is not 
burned. It is only a faint. Let me have a man to clear the way 
through the crowd.” 

Before the stalwart constable, the tightly packed multitude 
made way respectfully, and as Crozier passed they greeted him 
with rough words of commendation. 

“Well done, my lad!” they said. “Brayvo! You’re a good 
un, an’ no mistake ! God bless you for this night’s work !” 

Some one had called a cab, and Tom Yalliant was lifted in. 
Then the singer turned to the policeman. 

“Here, constable,” he said, in a quietly commanding way, “I 
want you to take him home. Number 11 Lime Court, first floor. 
This is the latch-key. I am going round by St. Antony’s to 
bring a doctor, and will be home almost as soon as you.” 

The man leaped into the cab, and Crozier gave the driver the 
address; then he shouldered his way through the crowd and dis- 
appeared in the restless traffic of the Strand. Presently he left 
the busy thoroughfare and made his way through several narrow 
passages at a brisk run. 

“ If I can only get there before he is called to attend to Syra,” 
he muttered, breathlessly, as he sped along. 

The broad door of St. Antony’s was open when he reached it ; 
the night-porter, who touched his hat to Crozier, was directing two 


212 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


policemen to take the stretcher they were bearing to the end of 
the passage in front of them, where a nurse stood waiting. 

“ Is Dr. Leonard up-stairs ?” asked the singer. 

“ Yes, sir,” replied the porter; “he’s in his room.” 

There was a broad-faced, middle-aged man upon the stairs, de- 
scending slowly, with a smile (which was habitual) on his face. 

“ Holloa, Sam !” said the gentleman, cheerfully. 

“ I say, Martin, old fellow,” said Crozier, stopping for a mo- 
ment, “ I am going to take Leonard away for a bit ; -you don’t 
mind taking his watch, do you ?” 

“Not a bit,” was the ready answer. “But, tell me, is there 
anything wrong ?” 

“ Yalliant !” cried the singer, as he sped up-stairs. 

The middle-aged man whistled softly a single prolonged note, 
and continued his way down-stairs. There was a nurse waiting 
for him in the passage below. 

Crozier found Wilson Leonard in his room. The young doctor 
was smoking in a deep arm-chair, and slowly turning the pages 
of a large scientific work which was fixed on a movable rest at- 
tached to the chair. 

“ Leonard,” said the singer, “can you come to Lime Court with 
me at once?” 

The doctor rose from his chair quickly. 

“ You, Sara !” he exclaimed. “ What’s up ?”' 

“ Tom Yalliant,” was the reply. “ Look sharp, man. Tom is 
insensible ; he wants you badly.” 

For a moment the singer’s voice was unsteady. His deep-set 
earnest eyes hesitated to meet the grave glance of the young doctor. 
Leonard wasted no time in taking his hat from a peg behind the 
door ; then he looked round the room as if in search of something. 

“What is it?” asked Crozier, sharply. 

“ My coat.” 

“ Good God, man, come on !” cried the singer, almost fiercely. 
“ What is a coat compared to a man’s life ?” 

Wilson Leonard had known this grave, self-contained man for 
years. They had been together through many untoward inci- 
dents, as through many lighter scenes. He glanced anxiously into 
his face as he seized his coat from a chair where it lay. 

“All my instruments are in the pockets,” he explained, gently, 
while his mind was busy with the thought that he had never heard 


i 


THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 


213 


Sam Crozier speak like that before. There was a thrill of some- 
thing which was almost fear in his voice, and Wilson Leonard 
heard it with a sudden and unaccountable misgiving. 

A minute later, they passed down the hospital stairs together, 
and out of the broad door. Crozier was breathing a trifle hard, 
but it was not from the exertion of running. He had succeeded 
in getting Leonard away from St. Antony’s without his being 
confronted by the mangled body of Syra ; but there was still the 
news to be told. 

“ How did it happen f” asked the doctor, when they were seated 
in a hansom cab. 

“ Well, I was not there myself, but it appears that in the midst 
of great excitement he suddenly fainted. I will tell you after- 
wards ; this beastly cab rattles so much that I cannot make my- 
self heard.” 

“ Was it at Myra’s ?” 

“Yes,” answered Crozier. Then he recollected that the man 
was driving them in the direction of the fire. He jumped up and 
put his head out. 

' “ Go round by the Embankment, cabby,” he shouted ; “ the 
Strand is crammed ; and go hard !” 

The man obeyed the instructions, driving with apparent reck- 
lessness at a quick trot down one of the steep and narrow streets 
that lead from the Strand to the Embankment. 

In a few minutes they were in Lime Court. Crozier glanced 
up at his windows and saw that they were fully alight. The po- 
liceman had arrived with his burden. 

They found his helmet and cape in the sitting-room, while the 
door of the bedroom stood open. Tom Yalliant was lying on the 
bed when they entered, and the policeman was bending over him, 
loosening his clothes gently. 

“ He’s still insensible, sir,” said the man, standing erect. 

Wilson Leonard went forward and leaned over the bed. In a 
few moments he learned everything. 

“ How long has he been like this ?” he asked. 

“About twenty minutes, sir,” answered the constable. 

Then, for the first time since they had entered the room, Cro- 
zier spoke. 

“ Mrs. Yalliant, his aunt, one of the few relations he has, is in 
town,” he said. “ Shall I send for her ?” 


214 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Is she,” asked the doctor, without turning his attention away 
from his patient, “ the sort of person one would send for?” 

“Yes, I think so.” 

“ Then let her come.” 

Crozier passed into the other room, followed by the policeman. 

“I will write a note,” he said, “which I want you to take out 
and give to a commissionnaire ; doubtless you know where to find 
one. Tell him to take a hansom, and drive as hard as he can to 
the address which he will find on the envelope. There is a ball 
in the house, so that he will find them still astir.” 

“ Right, sir.” 

“ In the mean time,” continued Crozier, “ here is the whiskey- 
bottle, the water is on the sideboard. Help yourself while I write 
the note.” 

“ Thank you, sir, I will,” was the answer. “ Such work as we 
have had to-night is apt to unsteady a man.” 

The singer nodded his head in acquiescence, although his hand 
was as steady as a rock while he wrote : 

“Dear Mrs. Yalliant, — Your nephew Tom is taken seriously 
ill. He is here, in my rooms ; and the doctor on hearing that 
you were in town asked me to send for you. Hoping that a 
change for the better will take place before your arrival, 

“ I am, yours very truly, 

“ Samuel Crozier.” 

“ It is no good mincing matters with Mrs. Valliant,” he re- 
flected, as he folded the letter. “ She is not that sort of woman.” 

He was thinking of the gray eyes with a ring of darker color 
round the iris. 

The note was despatched, and Crozier returned to his bedroom. 
Leonard had drawn forward a chair, and was sitting at the bed- 
side with his fingers clasped round Tom Yalliant’s wrist. 

“ Well?” whispered the singer, interrogatively. 

The young doctor shook his head significantly. 

“ I am afraid,” he answered, “ that he is sinking fast.” 

And thus they waited for the advent of that dread angel whose 
wings were even now overshadowing them — the doctor seated by 
the bedside, the singer standing beside him silently. There was 
something infinitely pathetic in the utter helplessness of these two 


THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 


215 


helpful men. They could do nothing but wait, each in his char- 
acteristic way — Wilson Leonard with grave sympathy, but watch- 
ful, as behooved his profession ; he knew that there was no hope, 
but being young he hoped still — Sam Crozier, self-restraining and 
self-contained as usual. During the last hour he had passed 
through what would have been sufficient to shake the nerve of a 
strong man, but this ex-sailor knew that there was work for him 
to do yet — work requiring all his tact and all his wonderful nerve. 
He stood there silent in his strength ; not unemotional, not hard- 
hearted or unfeeling, but simply mastering himself. There is in 
some men a calmness which is nothing else than density, and a 
brute-like incapacity to feel sorrow or joy, but his was not this. 
His was the outcome of a great courage, and an unusual consid- 
eration for the feelings of others. It was a very sad picture this, 
formed by three men in a quiet bedroom in Lime Court ; but the 
saddest figure in it — ay, sadder than he who lay dying, for he 
was restful — was that of the quiet, capable-looking man standing 
behind the doctor’s chair. It may be a mistake, but in any kind 
of strength I cannot help seeing also pathos. When I look up 
from this paper there is before me a huge fortress practically im- 
pregnable — a thing of which the whole country may be proud. 
But— quite apart from any associations called up by the grim 
muzzles of its cannon — the sight is a sad one. In its long straight 
lines, in the gentle curve of its earthworks, there is distinct pathos. 
And from that fortress, the very embodiment of strength, down 
to Sam Crozier standing with his hands in his pockets watching 
his friend pass away from all earthly joy and sorrow, there is sad- 
ness in every strong thing. 

They had not long to wait. For some time Tom Valliant’s 
breathing had been labored and irregular. Presently it simply 
ceased, and the Answer was his — the Answer to the great unend- 
ing “Why?” which haunts every human life. It is hard for us 
to understand why life had been given to him at all, why unusual 
talents had been vouchsafed, why a brave true heart had beaten in 
his breast, if this were to be the end of it all. 

Here was ambition held back by a terrible certainty of unful- 
filment — talent wasted by the thought that there was nothing to 
work for — love crushed by the knowledge that it dare not ask for 
love again. Here was a life denuded of all that makes existence 
a joy, for in that vague uncertain promise which we call the fut- 


216 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


ure lies the germ of human happiness. Imagine your own life 
without a future! You cannot — you dare not. This is no ser- 
mon, and it is of human life that I am speaking. Some there 
are who profess to find consolation for all earthly sorrows in an- 
other future far beyond this glimmering shadow we all pursue. 
But with all their resignation, such worthy and sanctified persons 
look forward to the nearer future as much as we do, who are 
without the pale of holiness. In winter they look forward to the 
spring even as we do — in the spring they pleasantly anticipate 
summer. Moreover, they complain sadly enough when spring is 
late in coming. 

Tom Yalliant’s lifawas like a splendid lamp with too little oil. 
It lacked an essential of which the absence was not apparent to 
the on-looker. Others may have suspected it, but he knew — knew 
infallibly and indubitably — that his existence was without a fut- 
ure. There were indeed times when hope seemed for the mo- 
ment to have overcome science; but science never dies, and never 
surrenders, she only waits. And so he had to shape his plan of 
life without an aim ; he had to steer his course upon the dark 
waters without a light or port to make for. 

The two living men wondered over these things as they looked 
upon the pallid, calm face of him whose task was done. There 
was a shadowy, vague smile upon the clean-cut features — even 
death could not drive that away. And they felt that that indefi- 
nite smile denoted that he had the Answer vouchsafed unto him. 

Presently Dr. Leonard rose from his seat at the bedside. 

“ You never told me,” he said, “ how it happened.” 

“ No,” answered Crozier, looking at his companion in a curious, 
searching way. “ No ; I will tell you.” 

He paused, and withdrawing his hands from his pockets, he 
rubbed them slowly together, palm to palm. This man never at- 
tempted to beat about the bush. 

“ I did not tell you before,” he continued, slowly and delib- 
erately, “ because it is a long story, and — because — because I 
funked it.” 

Wilson Leonard had not been a doctor for some years without 
acquiring a few small professional mannerisms and habits. He 
was unscrewing the ivory end of his stethoscope with a certain 
briskness which I am afraid many of us know too well. We all 
have a professional way of handling the tools which our craft re- 


THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 


217 


quires. Watch the doctor with his instruments — consider the 
waiter with his plates. He looked up sharply as he continued 
unscrewing. The action was that with which he heard of an un- 
desirable symptom. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ Go on, please.” 

“ Myra’s,” said Crozier, simply, “ has been burned down. St. 
Antony’s fellows have prophesied it for years, and now it has 
come. Tom was unfortunately there. He and Syra were in the 
inner bar, and they were driven up-stairs by the flames. There 
was a delay in the arrival of the escape, and the only way out of 
it was to swing down by a rope which the crowd held taut, away 
from the house. He attempted to save Syra, and would have 
done so, but he fell back insensible.” 

Wilson Leonard stood quite still. He was carefully buttoning 
his top-coat in a peculiar mechanical way. He pulled it down in 
front, and tapped his chest where there were wrinkles in the 
cloth. 

“And Syra?” he asked, in a toneless whisper. 

For some time there was silence in the room. Crozier moved 
uneasily, and turned his back upon his companion. 

“ She fell,” he said, at length. 

Dr. Leonard moved, and Crozier, turning, saw him draw the 
sheet over Tom Yalliant’s face. 

“ Where have they taken her to ?” he then inquired. 

“ To St. Antony’s.” 

Leonard stroked his colorless mustache thoughtfully. 

“ And that was why you were in such a desperate hurry to get 
me out of the place,” he said, softly. 

The singer did not answer. There was nothing to say, and he 
wisely recognized the fact. His companion now crossed the 
room, and sat slowly down in a* low chair. He looked up specu- 
latively at Crozier. 

“ How quietly I am taking it, Sam,” he said, “ am I not ? 
Very quietly.” 

At this moment they were interrupted by footsteps, clear and 
loud, in the solitude of Lime Court. 

“ There is Mrs. Valliant,” exclaimed the singer, moving towards 
the door. But Leonard stopped him. 

“ I say, Sam !” 


218 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ I would sooner,” said the doctor, “ have heard that news from 
you than from any man in the world.” 

Crozier nodded his head in vague acknowledgment, and passed 
out of the room, leaving Leonard alone with his own thoughts — 
alone with the calm, restful form beneath the sheet. He hurried 
away, with all a brave man’s cowardice, from thanks; but he 
fully recognized the meaning of the simple phrase, which was at 
once a confession and a mark of life-long gratitude. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“be ye therefore very courageous.” 

Crozier’s note reached Elma as the last guest was lighting his 
cigar in Sir Thomas Firton’s hall. Lady Firton had just dropped 
wearily into a low chair in the drawing-room when the servant 
brought in the letter upon a salver. He handed it to Elma, al- 
though the address was^.distinctly written ; but he knew that Mrs. 
Yalliant had left with the Barker family some time before, and 
the word “immediate,” written across the corner of the envelope, 
justified the action. 

Notes do not usually arrive at midnight, but the re^ of the 
house party were too well bred to show their astonishment. 
Only Lady Firton looked a little anxiously at Elma. It was no- 
ticeable that her habitual expression, which w r as one of capable 
kindliness, changed with marvellous rapidity to a look of keen 
anxiety. But many gay and laughing ladies have that way with 
them. Their smile is sincere enough, but there is no depth of 
joyousness in it. 

“It is addressed to mother,” murmured Elma to her hostess, 
who was seated quite close to her ; “ but I will open it, because it 
is from Mr. Crozier. I am afraid something must have hap- 
pened.” 

Lady Firton was still watching, with the quick contraction 
about her lips somewhat intensified. She said nothing. Elma 
had already torn open the envelope in a dexterous, fearless way, 
so there was nothing to be said. But Lady Firton noticed the 
fearlessness and the quick determination. 


BE YE THEREFORE VERY COURAGEOUS.’ 


219 


“The only thing she has inherited from her mother,” she said 
to her husband later, “ is nerve. She has her father’s sweet, cheery 
nature and her mother’s strong nerve.” 

Elma read the note, and rose quietly to hand it to Lady Firton. 

“ I must go at once,” she said, in a low voice. 

Somehow the other guests had dropped away, and they were 
alone at the end of the long room. 

* In a moment Lady Firton had taken in the meaning of Cro- 
zier’s hasty words. 

“ I will go with you, dear,” she said at once. 

“ No,” answered the girl, earnestly, “ I would not think of such 
a thing. My own maid will be quite sufficient escort.” 

“But, my dear Elma, you cannot go to a man’s chambers at 
this time of night with no one but a maid.” 

“ Mr. Crozier’s chambers,” suggested Elma. 

“ Yes,” replied Lady Firton, readily enough ; “ I know Sam is 
different from other men, but still — ” 

At this moment Sir Thomas entered the room. He was smok- 
ing a very large cigar, and a pleasant smil^ came over his bronzed 
face when he saw his wife. 

“ Tom, come here,” cried her ladyship. “ What are we to 
do?” 

He took the letter and read it slowly. Then he emitted a thin, 
spiral <$oud of blue smoke. 

“ Sara Crozier,” he said, with a sudden change of manner, from 
easy indifference to grave energy, “ is not the man to lose his head 
and make a mountain out of a mole-hill. This letter means more 
than it says. I see it is addressed to your mother.” 

“Yes,” said Elma, hastily; “but mother is sleeping at Mrs. 
Barker’s. I must go at once to Tom.” 

Sir Thomas glanced at his wife. Their eyes met for a second. 

“ Yes, my dear child,” he said then, “ you must go at once. 
Shall I go with you, or would you rather have Parkyns, the 
butler?” ' 

Elma hesitated. She was afraid of appearing rude to this 
diplomate, who seemed to divine her thoughts almost before they 
were formed. 

“ I will tell you what we can do,” said Sir Thomas, without 
waiting for her reply ; “ you go off with Parkyns in a hansom to 
Crozier’s. I will go to Mrs. Barker’s. If the house is shut up 


220 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


and I cannot see your mother, I will go down to the Temple my- 
self, and bring you home here. It may not be so serious after 
all. Now run up and put on a thick cloak. Parkyns will have a 
cab waiting by the time you come down-stairs.” 

The girl obeyed, and husband and wife were left alone in the 
empty ball-room. Sir Thomas removed the large cigar from his 
lips and looked into his capable little wife’s face. The expression 
of anxiety denoted by a contraction round the eyes was still there. 

“ Is this an incident,” he asked, “ or a tragedy ?” 

Lady Firton was looking at the bare, smooth floor. Here and 
there a flower, a bow, or a piece of muslin had been kicked aside. 
It is better to turn out the gas and go to bed as soon as a ball- 
room is deserted ; the sight of it is not cheerful. 

“ I am not sure,” she answered; “ I cannot tell at all. There is 
some one ; I only hope it is not Tom Valliant.” 

Sir Thomas had Crozier’s letter in his hand. He now read it 
again, thoughtfully. 

“Yes,” he said, “yes. It is to be hoped so, for I think the 
boy is dead. By-the-way, he was not here to-night.” 

“ No ; he does not go to dances if he can help it.” 

Sir Thomas turned away to call the butler, who passed the 
door at this moment. 

“You had better go down to the supper-room, old lady,” he 
said to his wife. “They are all there, and will be wondering 
where we are.” 

The streets were empty, and the cabman divined that pace 
would pay. When Parkyns announced that they had arrived at 
their destination, Elma realized the fact with a sudden throb of 
fear. As they had come by the Embankment she had seen noth- 
ing of the fire, which was now almost under control. 

Before there was time to ring the bell Crozier opened the door 
himself. 

“You!” he exclaimed, anxiously, when he had recognized 
Elma. 

Then he looked over her shoulder, and saw that her companion 
was Sir Thomas Firton’s butler. 

“ Good-evening, Parkyns,” he said, in a singularly calm voice. 
“ Just wait here, will you ?” 

There was a comfortable chair in the passage, and the butler 
seated himself resignedly, while Crozier led the way up-stairs, 


BE YE THEREFORE VERY COURAGEOUS.’ 


221 


Elina followed him closely. His peculiar hesitation of manner 
(as if for once in his life he was at a loss and did not know what 
to do next) puzzled her. In a mechanical way she noted the char- 
acteristics of the room, even to the little copper kettle in the fen- 
der, the pipes upon the mantle-piece, and the piano laden with 
music. 

“ Where is Tom ?” she asked, looking round the room. 

“In there,” he answered, indicating the door of the bedroom, 
across which the curtain was drawn. 

She moved towards it, but he was before her, and stood square- 
ly, with his back to the curtain. 

“You must not go in,” he said, gently. “Oh, Elma, why did 
you come?” 

“ I came,” she answered, “ because mother had left ; she is stay- 
ing at Mrs. Barker’s. Sir Thomas has gone to bring her. It was 
clearly my duty to come to Tom.” 

She made a step forward, as if expecting him to move aside, 
but he remained motionless. Then she looked up into his face. 
Suddenly her soft, child-like eyes contracted with a look of horror. 

“ He is dead !” she whispered. “ I can see it in your face.” 

In her excitement she laid her hand upon his arm. The sleeve 
was wet, and looking up she noticed a dull black mark across the 
front of his shirt, where a dripping rope had dragged. He took 
her hand and led her away from the door towards a chair. 

“Yes,” he said, slowly; “he is dead, and that is why I do not 
want you to go in. There is nothing to be gained by it. He 
himself would rather that you did not go, I am sure.” 

She was hardly listening. Her cloak had fallen, from her 
shoulders, and she stood before him in all her sweet, unconscious 
beauty. Her soft, white dress was a little crushed, the flowers at 
her breast were brown and withered, and she was very pale and 
weary. But there was a look of keen, womanly scrutiny in her 
eyes while she looked up at the strong, calm man. 

“What has happened?” she asked, quickly. “Your clothes 
are wet, and you are burned. Your hair and even your eyelashes 
are singed.” 

He passed his hand across his face. His crisp hair, his eye- 
lashes, and even his mustache were tipped with white, which had 
a most peculiar effect, almost giving him the appearance of an 
elderly man. 


222 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“There has been a fire,” he replied. “Myra’s is burned down. 
As I was coming away from Lady Firton’s I saw the glare, and 
knew that it must be somewhere in the Strand. It began in the 
bar, and Tom, who was in the inner room, was driven up-stairs. 
He tried to save — Syra — and would have done so, but he suddenly 
fainted. I was not there, but I was told of it. I got there a few 
minutes later with the escape, and — we — managed to get him out.” 

“ And Syra ?” inquired Elma. 

“ She fell from the window when he fainted.” 

“ Killed ?” whispered the girl. 

“ Yes. It was the second story window. I brought Tom here ; 
at least I sent him under the care of a policeman, while I went 
round by St. Antony’s to bring Dr. Leonard. He never recov- 
ered consciousness.” 

Elma was seated in a low chair. She leaned forward and stared 
at the dying fire. 

“ How sad — how yery, very sad !” she murmured. 

Crozier suddenly raised his head and turned towards her. 
There was a puzzled expression on his face, like that of a man 
who hears a sound for which he cannot account. There were 
tears in her eyes, and suddenly she began to weep gently and 
quietly. The dainty little lace handkerchief which she held to 
her face was never woven for tears. 

He stood with one foot on the fender and his right arm resting 
on the mantle-piece, waiting with that purposeful calmness which 
was characteristic of the man. Presently she ceased sobbing, 
and sat motionless, with the tears still glistening on her lashes. 
Then he turned, and his deep-set eyes rested fpr a moment on 
her face and form. 

“ You are utterly exhausted,” he said. He approached her, 
and stood for some moments near her chair — indeed, his hand 
was resting upon the back of it — looking down at her. There 
was a wonderful sense of comfort and helpfulness in this man’s 
silent sympathy which warmed Elma’s heart. Then he turned 
away and opened the small sideboard. With the quick, noiseless 
movement of the hands which never quite leaves a sailor, he 
poured out a glass of wine and brought it to her. 

“ Thank you,” she said, and obediently drank it. 

At this moment there came the sound of some one moving in 
the bedroom, and Elma started. 


I 


BE YE THEREFORE VERY COURAGEOUS.’ 


223 


“ Dr- Leonard is in there,” Crozier hastened to explain, as he 
went towards the door. He drew aside the curtain, and Dr. 
Leonard came into the room, closing the bedroom door behind 
him. 

“This is Dr. Leonard — Miss Valliant,” said Crozier. 

Wilson Leonard went forward and took her hand. His eyes 
were very sympathetic, and his grave, melancholy face was sin- 
gularly pale. 

“ I am glad to have seen you, Miss Valliant,” he said. “ Tom 
and I were great friends, and I knew that his heart was very 
weak — I knew that this must come, sooner or later. He has 
been a condemned man for years. I never told him, but I think 
he knew it. I am almost sure he knew it. Some people may 
think that I did wrong in not telling him, but the knowledge of 
it would not have made any difference. If doctors told all they 
know the world would be a more miserable place than it is. If 
your father and mother wish to see me, I shall be happy to give 
them all the information in ray power.” 

He held out his hand again and nodded to Crozier as he turned 
to leave the room. Before he reached the door he staggered to 
one side, and only saved himself from falling by clutching the 
sideboard. In a moment Crozier was at his side. 

“ Leave me alone, old fellow,” said Wilson Leonard, huskily. 
“ I am all right. It was only a little giddiness, which will pass 
off when I get outside.” 

He pushed Crozier’s arm aside almost roughly, and passed out 
of the room. They heard him close the door, and immediately 
afterwards his footsteps rang out firmly and clearly on the pave- 
ment of Lime Court. 

“He has had bad news to-night,” said Crozier, when the sound 
had died away. 

With womanly intuition Elma connected Wilson Leonard’s 
bad news with the fire at Myra’s. 

“Tom once told me,” she said, gently, “about Syra. Was it 
Dr. Leonard ?” 

“ Yes,” answered the singer ; “ it was Dr. Leonard.” 

They were both silent for some time. Perhaps they were think- 
ing how promptly Wilson Leonard had come to his friend’s side ; 
how entirely he had set aside his own weariness and want of rest; 
how the roan had given place to the doctor. 


224 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ I think,” said Elma, at length, in little more than a whisper,- 
“that Tom knew. It would explain many things which I did 
not understand before.” 

Crozier recalled the conversation he had had with Tom Yalliant 
not so very long before, about the girl seated there within a few 
yards of the man who had loved her. 

“ Yes,” he answered ; “ it would explain many things.” 

“ That is why he would not take up any work seriously,” con- 
tinued the girl ; “ why he was so utterly indifferent about the 
future.” She stopped, and looked up towards her companion 
with a wistful smile. “ That is why,” she added, “ he always 
talks of the phantom future — used to talk, I mean — oh, I cannot 
realize that he is dead at all !” 

She glanced towards the bedroom door, as if half expecting 
Tom Yalliant to draw aside the curtain and greet them with his 
sweet, quick smile, and some merry suggestion. Death seemed 
so far from him in whom a bright vitality was never wanting. 
It was indeed hard to realize that the mobile and dancing eyes 
were closed forever. 

“ If he did know it,” said Crozier, “ he was very plucky about 
it.” 

“ Yes ; he concealed his knowledge very bravely. Do you re- 
member, Sam, once long ago I told you that I thought his merri- 
ment was not quite sincere ?” 

“ Yes, Elma ; I remember.” 

It was a sort of understood thing that they should address each 
other by Christian names, for they had been children together ; 
but of late the familiar habit had fallen into disuse, and in avoid- 
ing the formal Mr. or Miss they had learned to do without the 
mention of names at all. 

“ He must have known then,” murmured the girl, thoughtfully. 

He did not answer her, and they relapsed into silence. Both 
were recalling a thousand incidents which rose before their mental 
vision, now that it was cleared by knowledge, in glaring evidence 
of the fact that Tom Valliant knew, and had known for years, 
that he was a doomed man. Such knowledge is one of the sad- 
dest things that human life contains, which, God knows, is saying 
a good deal, and science has assuredly done us doubtful service in 
this matter. 

Elma’s great calmness puzzled Crozier. He had always taken 


“BE YE THEREFORE VERY COURAGEOUS.’ 


225 


it for granted that she loved the man who lay dead in the other 
room, but the knowledge of his sad and sudden death had been 
received by her in a manner indicative of nothing more than 
cousinly affection. He had, in a desultory way, concluded that 
she was waiting for Tom Yalliant to declare his love, and now he 
knew why his friend had kept silence on this point. This knowl- 
edge was but an increase of sorrow, for it made Tom Valliant’s 
fight against his fate a braver and truer battle. Such, in truth, it 
had been, for he had suspected that Elma’s love was within his 
reach had he stretched out his hand. But he was withheld — 
withheld by the knowledge that in manly honor and fairness he 
had no right to speak of love to any woman ; that the future 
was indeed a phantom. ’Tis the brightest light that flickers first. 
Tom’s life had barely passed a third of the allotted span of years, 
but he left two marks upon the broad sands of time. One, the 
book of poems illustrated exquisitely and poetically, as the aged 
singer himself would have wished them illustrated ; and the other 
a memory that lived for many years at St. Antony’s and at Gold- 
heath — the memory of one who had been “ very courageous,” as 
we are bidden to be. Some there were who detected a certain 
inconsistency, a glaring contrast between the drawings and the 
man whose work they were. In them there was something more 
than mere dexterity of pencil — something higher than an intuitive 
knowledge of light and shade — something deeper than a graceful 
delicacy of touch. There was a great thoughtfulness, and to it 
was added a subtle poetic conception. These qualities formed no 
part of the individuality which the artist chose to present to the 
world as Tom Yalliant. Assuredly there was an inconsistency, 
and in coming to meditate over it, there were one or two persons 
who realized that it lay in the fact that the almost reckless cheer- 
fulness with which Tom Valliant’s memory was associated was 
nothing more than a part of his scheme of life. It was a mask 
— a merry, smiling mask — behind which to conceal the saddest 
of all the sad tales of which the first chapters were opening in St. 
Antony’s students’ hall. 

“ I wonder,” meditated Crozier, following out his own thoughts 
with regard to Elma — “ I wonder if I have been on the wrong 
tack for years. I wonder if I have made a great mistake.” 

Before the silence was again broken there was a sound of foot- 
steps in the passage, and shortly afterwards a light tread upon 
15 


226 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


the stairs. The door was opened quietly, and Sir Thomas Firton 
entered. He glanced at both occupants of the room in a quick, 
comprehensive way, and then he turned to Crozier. He raised 
his eyebrows interrogatively, and at the same time his lips framed 
the monosyllable, “ Head ?” 

The singer nodded his head. 

Then Sir Thomas went to Elina’s side. He stooped over her 
very tenderly. If Crozier had made a mistake, he was not alone 
in his error. 

“ I could not bring your mother, dear,” said Sir Thomas ; “ the 
house was shut up. Come home with me now ; you can do 
nothing more.” 

She rose and took the cloak which the singer laid gently upon 
her shoulders. There are some women who seem destined never 
to realize the pathos of life. It is not that they are devoid of 
feeling or sympathy, but in their sunny natures there is a fund of 
innocence and sweetness which never turns to sorrow or disap- 
pointment. They cannot believe in the evil of human nature; 
they never quite comprehend that life is real and earnest. Of 
these was Elma Valliant. To such fair optimists as these, men 
and women unconsciously make the best of things, seeking to de- 
tract from sorrow, surrounding them with the elements of human 
happiness. Thus it happened that Sir Thomas Firton and Sam- 
uel Crozier played into each other’s hands — as men sometimes 
do — instinctively. Although Heath was within a few yards of 
them, although the singer had looked upon it in all its grim real- 
ity a few minutes before, they avoided, by tacit consent, adding 
to its horror by lowered voice or awe-struck manner. 

It may be that Elma divined their intention, for who can read 
the thoughts that pass behind bewilderingly, almost aggravatingly, 
innocent eyes such as hers? Be that as it may, she said to Sir 
Thomas, softly and gratefully, “ It is very good of you to take so 
much trouble. You are both very kind to me.” 

Her eyes were still a little red from recent tears, and, as Sir 
Thomas had said, she was utterly worn-out between pleasure and 
pain. Crozier accompanied them down-stairs, and held open the 
door. Parkyns went on in front to call the cab. Sir Thomas 
walked gravely down the worn stone steps, and Elma followed 
him. Then suddenly she turned back, and running up again, 
stood beside Crozier in the door-way. 


GOLDHEATH AGAIN. 


227 


“Are you quite sure,” she asked, in a whisper, “that you are 
not burned or hurt in any way ?” 

“ Quite sure,” he replied, looking down at her with his slow 
smile. 

She left him with a little nod — left him standing upon the top 
step, but he was quite grave now ; the smile had vanished from 
his face. While he still stood there, the voice of Big Ben came 
echoing over the roofs; it was two o’clock. In less than two 
hours it would be daylight. 

The singer turned and mounted the stairs slowly. Standing 
on the hearth-rug before the glowing cinders, he leisurely passed 
his hands over his arms and shoulders. His clothes were almost 
dry now, and he had a nautical disregard for clean water. Never- 
theless, he reflected indefinitely that the fireman upon the oppo- 
site roof need not have directed his hose towards the burning 
window just as he reached it. 

He glanced towards the closed door of the bedroom, then he 
boldly crossed the room, and drawing aside the curtain, he opened 
the door and crossed its threshold. Presently he returned, having 
exchanged his dress-coat for a short jacket. Then he settled 
himself in his deep arm-chair with the evident intention of sleep- 
ing there. But he was restless, and slumber failed to answer his 
call. He moved impatiently once or twice, and finally sat for- 
ward with his elbows upon his knees. 

“ I wonder,” he said, murmuring to himself, “ whether I have 
been making a huge mistake all along.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

GOLDHEATH AGAIN. 

Crozier was not an impulsive man, but at times it pleased him 
to imagine himself to be such. His habit was to make up his 
mind slowly and very surely ; and once made up, it was as the 
laws of the Medes and Persians. His mistakes — for we all have 
them to look back to, I thiuk — came rather from placing both 
sides of a question upon too equal a footing than from a rash 
adoption of the course that for a moment appeared more expe- 
dient. 


228 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


When, therefore, he stood one fair and sunny May morning at his 
window, and — while murmuring a song very sweetly — attempted 
to deceive himself into the belief that he was in an undecided 
frame of mind, the result was not entirely satisfactory. His mind 
had been made up for weeks, almost stretching into months. The 
day had come for which he had been patiently waiting — that was 
all — a fair spring morning, when men’s hearts are bold and wom- 
en’s soft. Moreover, he felt energetic, and there ran in his veins 
that subtle fire which imbues confidence and commands success. 
He felt that whatever he attempted to-day would be satisfactory. 

“ I think I will go to Goldheatb,” he said, interrupting his mur- 
murous song. “ I think I will go to Goldheath to-day 1” 

The deception was glaringly obvious. There was no thinking 
in the matter. He knew that there was half an hour yet before 
he need start, and he therefore stood lazily smoking, absently gaz- 
ing down into the court where the shadow of the brave old lime- 
tree lay in fantastic patterns upon the pavement. The leaves 
were out and fully formed, but were yet delicate in their texture 
and thin and bright in spring-like hues, so that the sun glancing 
over the tiled roofs threw golden gleams among the branches and 
soft hazy yellow shades. The ubiquitous London smut had not 
as yet taken up his lodging to any great extent upon leaf and 
stalk (though the seasoned wood was wofully black), so that the 
toilers of Lime Court and idlers of the same could glance out of 
their dirty windows and learn most unmistakably that spring was 
now established in the land. The legal sparrow knew this also, 
and held May meetings on the smutty branches from early morn- 
ing until sunset. He did not sleep beneath the leafy roof because 
his town-bred feet were unaccustomed to a slumberous grip of 
round things ; preferred something flat, with the warm corner of 
a chimney to lean against and be thankful for, about three o’clock 
ante-meridian. But he came down from the roofs and called his 
friends, and set up a restless chattering and a hopping from twig 
to twig, while all the neighborhood’s cats prowled around with 
murderous thought intent. For even spring (in addition to the 
battle that hovers round love) breathes murder and sudden death. 

The singer looked down upon these signs of joyous life, and 
listened vaguely to the sparrows’ voice. With his hands thrust 
deeply into his pockets he stood upright, and while smoking the 
everlasting wooden pipe, thought gently over the possibilities of 


GOLDHEATH AGAIN. 


229 


life, taken from the point of view of a strong man of thirty years. 
Of late he had acquired this evil habit of allowing himself to re- 
flect upon abstract things and possibilities. He was no longer 
nervously active, anxiously studious; and some people thought 
that he was singing better than ever, although he confessed to be- 
ing too lazy to learn so many new songs as publishers might de- 
sire. 

The yawl was purchased, and once or twice during the spring 
its owner had run down to Cowes to superintend her fitting-out 
in the Medina, but no plans were yet made for sailing her, no voy- 
ages proposed. 

Professionally the singer was in a better position than before. 
He had always been particular in the choice of his engagements, 
and his reputation now gained by this. One or two important 
concerts, patronized and attended by Royalty, had served to con- 
solidate his name, and now he had the pick of the musical world. 
With his old heedlessness he accepted or refused engagements as 
the spirit moved him, quite regardless of personal influence ; and 
with his former generosity he offered his services in unexpected 
quarters when it was a question of pure charity. 

Men spoke of “ old Sam ” with the same familiar affection as 
of yore, and it was soon almost forgotten that he was a rich man ; 
that he did not belong at all to the improvident world of artists, 
journalists, young novelists, and old play-writers, who made merry 
over misfortune and their wasted lives in the busy circle which is 
the inner hub of London life ; where night and day are as one ; 
w-here mind and body are never quite at rest ; and within whose 
charmed ring more genius has assuredly lived and died than in all 
England beside. 

Home-sick foreigners, hospital-sick students, and life-sick strug- 
glers of all sorts dropped in casually at No. 11 Lime Court, as 
they had always done, and went away from the door later feeling 
glad that they had done so. No meal-time, no hour of night or 
day was sacred — one could always find Samuel Crozier, and he 
never appeared too much occupied to spare a few minutes to help 
by word or deed his fellow-men. 

While he was still standing at the window, Wilson Leonard 
% ran lightly up the stairs and entered the room. 

“ Spring at last,” he -said, with a grave smile, as he held out his 
hand. 


230 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ Yes, the spring has come.” 

The young doctor’s sympathetic glance sought the singer’s 
face, and searching there discovered that there was a second 
meaning in the simple acquiescence — a meaning intended for the 
speaker’s private edification. From the strong and gentle face 
(the true sailor face) Leonard turned his attention to the upright 
person, and detected there a difference in habiliment. Crozier 
was dressed in country clothes, and yet he pretended to himself 
that the idea of running away from London and its dusty life 
had only come to him after breakfast. The doctor moved a little, 
and looked out of the window thoughtfully. Suddenly a short 
rapid sigh broke from his lips, and he seemed quite unconscious 
of it. These little sighs were becoming dangerously habitual 
with him. 

“ This sort of weather makes one long to get away,” he said, 
softly ; “ to get away from town and hospitals, sickness, accidents 
— and — everything.” 

“ Yes — ” answered the singer. It seemed as if he were going 
to add something more, but he stopped suddenly and continued 
smoking. He was pondering over that sharp sigh and the emo- 
tionless, sympathetic face — wondering over the wealth of mean- 
ing that lay sometimes in the little word “ everything.” 

Professionally, and from a practical worldly point of view, 
Fate had interposed her steady hand for the infinite benefit of 
Wilson Leonard as a doctor and a gentleman. Poor Syra had 
been right when she boldly told him that she could only bring 
misery into his life, and he knew it, but from the knowledge 
gained no consolation. Had the world known the story of this 
kindly young doctor, they would have bid him congratulate him- 
self that a terrible mistake had been averted — that it lay in a 
nameless grave in one of the vast fields where sleep the London 
dead, crowded and hustled even in their rest. But the world 
knew nothing of the story. It was hidden from every living 
soul with the exception of the broad-shouldered man who stood 
smoking in his simple silence, pondering over that little word 
“ everything,” and realizing slowly that there was something 
which Dr. Leonard could never leave behind, and never get away 
from. 

“ I am beginning to think,” said the young doctor, “ that I 
cannot stand this much longer. No doubt it is the effect of the 


GOLDHEATH AGAIN. 


231 


spring weather. But St. Antony’s is too busy with misery — ut- 
ter and hopeless misery. I have done my share ; I think I have 
waded deeply enough, Sam, into the mire of human troubles. It 
cannot be good for a fellow to live too long in one groove, espe- 
cially when that groove is full of suffering.” 

“You want a thorough change, Leonard,” said Crozier, present- 
ly. “ You have seen too much of the shady side of existence all 
at once, and it has done you harm. You will be beginning to 
think that all the world is like it, which is a mistake.” 

“ Yes, I suppose it is.” 

“ I will tell you what you must do,” continued the singer. 
“ Come with me for a cruise ; my yawl, the Willow-toren, is ready 
and waiting at Cowes. I want to get up a party — the Valliants, 
yourself, your sister if she will come, and a sailor-man I know 
of. He is never quite serious, and never cynical, a very rare com- 
bination, which makes a splendid companion. We will go for a 
month up into the Norwegian fiords, where there is never a heav}' 
sea, and fish and lounge. I think perhaps we all want a change.” ' 

“ It sounds very jolly,” said the doctor, with a wan smile. 

“It will be very jolly. I will get the company together at 
once. In fact, I rather thought of going down to Goldheath to- 
day — partly with a view of seeing if they would come. The 
old gentleman is an enthusiastic fisherman, and — Miss Yalliant — 
paints.” 

“ When do you think of starting ?” 

“About the middle of June,” replied the singer. “Midsum- 
mer is the best time for northern regions. Everything is so 
beautifully fresh and cool, which is exactly what we want — eh ?” 

“ Yes, that is what we want.” 

It is strange how men can go on living together, or near each 
other as friends for years, without ever exchanging a confidence. 
No reference to the past had ever been made by either Crozier 
or the doctor. Syra’s name had never been mentioned, had never 
passed their lips since that night when Elina sat in dazed silence 
and watched the two men standing together at the door — Leonard 
pale and sick, Crozier quick and watchful. The little stagger, 
the numb clutching at the wall, had never been explained, and 
never would be now. A strained reference was occasionally made 
to Tom Yalliant, sleeping peacefully in Goldheath church-yard, 
blind to all the shadows, deaf to the weary plash of rain and the 


232 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


dull foreboding roar of storms; but the subject was too near to 
other matters painful for both, and was soon dropped. It was 
only by vague half-hidden words of sympathy that Crozier re- 
ferred at times to the chapter in Leonard’s life which was destined 
for deliberate obliteration in the face of the world, though its ef- 
fect went through existence with him ; and by quiet acquiescence 
Leonard acknowledged his friend’s intention. 

“ Then,” said the singer, in a business-like tone, “ I may count 
upon you? I may hold you out as an attraction to hesitators?” 

“ Thanks,” replied the other ; “ I should like to go very much.” 

His tone was cheery enough, but Crozier glanced at his face 
as he turned to seek his hat, and saw that Wilson Leonard was 
not telling the strict truth. Had he told this he would have said 
that he did not care a rap where he went and what he did, for a 
great and weary indifference had come to him. 

“ I must be going now,” said Crozier. “There is just time to 
catch the train. Will you walk along with me ?” 

The doctor looked round for the inevitable Gladstone bag, but 
saw it not. 

“ You are taking no luggage ?” he said. 

“No. I am not going to stay — have to sing at Kensington 
to-night.” 

Conversation became broken and desultory as they walked to- 
gether along the Strand. The human tide was flowing eastward, 
and was therefore against them, which necessitated continual sep- 
aration. At the corner of Waterloo Bridge they parted, and 
Leonard went back to St. Antony’s while Crozier crossed the 
river. 

There was absolutely no incident to mark the railway journey, 
and yet it was one that the singer remembered to the end of his 
life. The train was almost empty, and he had the choice of 
many compartments. Once beyond the suburbs he lowered the 
window, and soon afterwards his newspaper began to lose interest. 
The line was very familiar to him ; he had travelled on it years 
ago with his first brass buttons proudly gleaming on his breast, 
and his last tears struggling to flow. Between those two railway 
journeys lay a whole history. 

Presently the train ran into the sandy pine country. There 
had been rain the night before, and all the atmosphere was fra- 
grant with the strong energetic smell of oozing resin. Through 


GOLDHEATH AGAIN. 


233 


the odorous forests the travellers sped, stopping here and there at 
quiet little road-side stations, until at last it was Crozier’s turn to 
alight. 

Mechanically he nodded to the station-master, who remembered 
his father, and held his own opinions about a parson’s son taking 
to singing and play-acting, and the like. Sam Crozier had never 
acted a part in his life except his own, which had at times been 
difficult enough, but at Goldheath one stage was considered as 
bad as another. 

As he walked along the gravelly platform he looked round 
him at the broad open country, and inhaled the fresh spring air. 
Never, he thought, had breath been so sweet — without even no- 
ticing that the station-master’s wallflowers were out, which no 
doubt accounted for it all. 

In a few minutes he was striding across Goldheath by a narrow 
path-way shorter than the road. Goldheath it was indeed that 
morning, for furze and whin were blooming in golden luxuriance, 
and the yellow-clad undulations rolled away into hazy distance 
unbroken save by a stunted pine or two and some straight larches 
clad in new and delicate green, of which the subtle aroma (like 
nothing else that I can think of but claret-cup) came in puffs. 

Overhead the larks were singing blithely, while all around whin- 
chat, wren, and yellow-hammer added their voices to the great re- 
joicing. Away somewhere in the distance a hawk whistled his 
mellow call, and fancied himself a curlew. 

Through this Samuel Crozier sped rapidly with firm long 
strides, and softly hummed his most melancholy song because the 
world was so fair, the morning so bright ; because he felt that the 
day was his, that whatever he attempted he must accomplish, 
whatever he sought he was sure to find. 

The short-cut which he had chosen did not lead to the village 
of Goldheath, but direct to the Court, cutting diagonally the long 
path. There was a stile from the open heath into the orchard, 
which latter was but thinly wooded, and no great success in the 
primary matter of fruit, and as he climbed this he heard the 
sound of wheels upon the soft gravel of the avenue. 

He walked on beneath the blossoming trees towards the sound, 
and then suddenly, and in a most unaccountable manner, he 
stopped. Through the as yet untrimmed hedge he had caught 
sight of Squire Valliant’s ancient mail-phaeton. The old gentle- 


234 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


man was gallantly driving with squared elbows, and at his side sat 
his wife. 

Years ago in a little affair of a naval brigade, Samuel Crozier 
had learned most effectually the art of seeking covert. He mere- 
ly stooped and turned down his trousers, in which he had taken a 
reef for greater convenience while crossing the sandy heath ; but 
it happened that a very promising black-currant bush entirely con- 
cealed him from the view of any persons who might be in the 
avenue. 

As the sound of the wheels diminished he rose again erect, and 
walked on with no outward sign of an evil conscience. 

“ She will either be in the Walled Garden or in the house, paint- 
ing,” he said gravely to himself. “ Of course she may be out, or 
even away from home, but — but I think she is here.” 

On nearing the house he ignored the formal bell at the side of 
the broad porch, and directed his steps across the turf towards 
the trellised door of the Walled Garden. There was no hesitation, 
no pause in his progress. He merely pushed the door open and 
walked straight in. Instantly a warmer breath of air met his face, 
and it was heavy with the odors of a hundred old-fashioned flow- 
ers. A few yards away from him was Elma. She did not hear 
him, for the soft sandy gravel made no sound beneath his feet, 
and she did not see him, because she was walking in the other di- 
rection with a book in her hand which she was reading. 

Round the Walled Garden, which was itself a circle, ran a circu- 
lar path of sandy gravel — a pleasant path to walk upon, for at 
parts it was shady, and there were sunny intervals such as are 
bearable and even grateful in most of our English summer days 
— which, if a wanderer may say so, are as near perfection as 
earthly climate reaches. Again, there was no break in the path, 
no halt and turn, but a continuous round amid sweet-smelling 
flowers. Here Elma loved to walk with a book, amid her odor- 
ous slaves, with the birds singing all around her. 

Crozier stood beneath the shade of an old ilex, and watched 
her as she moved away from him. Clad in a simple cotton dress 
of a faint pale blue, her head was without other protection than 
her own soft dry hair drawn upward in sweet disorder. She 
walked with a slow and measured step, which was very peaceful, 
with that gentle sense of rest which nature alone can teach us, 
and that only if we have not lived too long in towns. 


SAM EXPLAINS. 


235 


And so he stood in his silent repose, and waited for her to 
come round to him. Unconsciously he thus symbolized his own 
life. Had he not waited in that same fatalistic, unmurmuring 
way for her to come to him through all the years that lay between 
them ? Had she not, in her turn, started on a path which appar- 
ently led in an opposite direction, following its winding guidance 
through sunshine and shadow, scarce glancing to either side with 
those soft inscrutable eyes of hers, only to tread in the right way 
at last? There was no break in that circular path, and if we only 
knew it, there is a similar path beneath our feet marked out for 
us to follow, and yet we leave it deliberately, and crush the flow- 
ers that grow on either side. Elma loved the flowers too well to 
crush them, and she knew the path too well to leave it. Uncon- 
sciously and sweetly studious she came round to him. 

Suddenly she became aware that there was some one near her, 
standing indeed hatless in the middle of the path before her. It 
was beneath the shade of a glorious old cedar, but a shaft of sun- 
light glanced through the dark boughs and gleamed upon the 
pages of her book, throwing back a soft glow upon her features. 
Thus it happened that although her face was in the light, her 
eyes, being in the shadow, were soft and deep and dark when she 
raised them to his face. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SAM EXPLAINS. 

She was a little startled, and even after she had recognized him 
the expression did not vanish from her eyes ; indeed, it became a 
trifle more discernible. 

“Ah !” she exclaimed, with pleased surprise, “is it you?” 

She held out her cool hand, which he took with his peculiar 
little bow, very courteous and somewhat out of date. 

“ Yes,” he replied, “ it is I. I hope I don’t come mal a propos ; 
but this lovely day took me by surprise. I was not prepared to 
resist the temptation, and so succumbed.” 

“ Of course not,” she said, politely ; “ we are always very glad 
to see you.” There was a little pause, and then she added, in a 
more familiar and less conventional tone, “ I think we have all 


236 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


tried to make you understand that you can never come mal 
a propos, but you refuse to take us at our word.” 

He smiled vaguely, and looked round the garden in a singularly 
interested way. 

“ Mother and papa have just gone out,” she added, seeing that 
he was inclined to silence, which for some reason was irksome to 
her just then. 

“Yes,” he said, honestly, “I saw them from the orchard.” 

“ But they did not see you ?” 

“ No — no ; they did not see me.” 

They were slowly walking side by side round the Walled Gar- 
den, and again there was a little pause, well filled, however, by a 
thousand trilling voices. 

“What were you reading?” he asked, at length, almost abruptly. 

“ Oh,” she answered, in a relieved tone, as if at last a con- 
genial topic had been found, “ an old history of the county, which 
I discovered behind some other books in the library. It has your 
father’s name on the first page, by-the-way.” 

He took the book and looked at its pages studiously, without 
reading a single word printed there. 

“I had just come across a most interesting statement. It ap- 
pears that the Yalliants have lived here for a long time, and that 
the Croziers lived two miles away, across the heath, in a house of 
which no sign is left.” 

“ And hated each other, I suppose ?” he suggested, gravely. 

“No; on the contrary.” 

“ Fell in love with each other ?” 

“Well, it does not mention that; but it says that harmony ex- 
isted between the two families, and that a Valliant and a Crozier 
— I mean a Crozier and a Valliant — rode southward together to 
Rye, where they took ship to the Holy Land at the bidding of 
Peter the Hermit.” 

“ That is rather interesting,” said Crozier, meditatively ; “ I 
would give a good deal to see those two fellows now. Not in 
their knightly armor and Crusader cloaks, but in their every-day 
clothes — just as they may have walked together in this gar- 
den.” 

“ It is strange to think of,” said Elma, softly. “ I never quite 
realized what it is to have ancestors ; in fact, I did not know we 
had any. It is very strange to think that those two men may 


SAM EXPLAINS. 


237 


have walked round this very path with their armor clanking. It 
makes those old days more real to think that we had relations 
there. I wonder what they were like — the two crusaders ; wheth- 
er they were devoted to each other and very courteous in their 
knightly way, or merely familiar as men are now, so that one can- 
not tell whether they are friends or not.” 

“ I suspect,” said Crozier, “ that they were just the same as we 
are now. No doubt they laughed and talked and deceived each 
other, or partially deceived each other, into all sorts of wrong 
beliefs, just as we do now, and it is probable that those two men 
knew no more of each other’s real individuality than I know of 
that of the Pope of Rome.” 

She laughed in a slightly strained way, and spoke at once, as if 
to avoid a momentary silence. 

“ How unsatisfactory !” she exclaimed. “ Then you are of opin- 
ion that human nature was as artificial then as now — that men 
did not confide in each other — did not trust each other?” 

“ Human nature,” he answered, “ has probably altered very lit- 
tle since the days of Noah. There were probably amateur theat- 
ricals in the Ark.” 

Elm a laughed suddenly. 

“ What do you mean?” she asked. 

“ Well,” he replied, gravejy, “ I don’t mean theatricals with a 
stage and a drop-scene and a prompter. I mean a much higher 
branch of the art, such as you and I and everybody perform every 
day in life.” 

Then she knew it had come. There was no stopping it now, so 
she merely clutched her book rather more nervously, and walked 
on by his side. But the color left her sweet young face, and her 
eyes were gleaming strangely. 

“ The stage,” he continued, “ is this garden, that library — every- 
where. The prompter, I suppose, is our own pride, and he is ex- 
cellent. We are all excellent; our amateur acting is too good; 
we do it too well. With Pride for prompter and Reserve for 
stage-manager, the comedy will be rather sad. If we would only 
show our feelings a little more and act with less skill, much sor- 
row would undoubtedly be averted. Most of our sorrows come 
from mistaken motives, and we deliberately continue to disguise 
our motives and hide our real feelings.” 

“ Yes,” she acquiesced, softly, “lam afraid we do.” 


238 


THE PHANTOM FUTURE. 


“ But,” he continued, “there is in most parts a key-note, an ex- 
planation, as it were, of the whole deception — a text to the sermon 
— a reason for the complications.” 

“Yes” — in a whisper. 

For some moments they walked in silence, and from his greater 
height he looked down on her gently, noting the nervous grip of 
her supple fingers round the old leather -bound book, and the 
sweet, frightened wonder in her parted lips. She hardly seemed 
to breathe at all. 

“ Five years ago,” he said, slowly, “ Tom told me that he loved 
you.” 

She gave a little nod of acquiescence, as if it were no news 
for her. 

“That,” he continued, “ was the motive. of my part. I have 
acted it so long now that it has almost become natural to me. It 
is almost harder to throw aside the mask than to continue wear- 
ing it. I know I have acted it well, because Tom never suspected 
me more than he suspected other men, for he was a little jealous. 
If you think over it, Elma, you will find that the explanation of 
everything is in the secret Tom told me five years ago. It tied 
my hands, it held me back ; in fact, it took the wind out of my 
sails, and I could do nothing but drift — drift idly, with no steer- 
age-way.” 

She walked quietly and steadily at his side, making no sign, 
saying no word. Her face was turned from him, and her eyes 
averted — those sweet innocent eyes that could not be brought to 
recognize harm in anything; but they were very soft, and the 
unshed tears were near. She carried the book in one hand now, 
and the other hung idly by her side. It was the hand nearest to 
him, and the fingers were moving gently towards him, and draw- 
ing back again. 

“ I loved you before Tom told me his secret,” he said, simply. 
Presently he looked away from her with a peculiar smile which 
Syra had known — a smile that flitted across his face when he said 
anything against himself which had perhaps a certain vein of truth 
in it. 

“ Of course,” he added, in a matter-of-fact way, “ I am quite 
aware that I am not the sort of man for a girl to love, especially 
if she be bright and sweet and happy as you are. I am a forbid- 
ding sort of fellow, I am afraid ; too quiet and self-restrained and 


SAM EXPLAINS. 


239 

dense, but — I love you — that is all I can say for myself. It may 
be that some day you can manage — ” 

He never finished the sentence, for he was interrupted by five 
small fingers creeping into the brown hand, which he carried half 
closed, as sailors do. And so they walked on hand in hand, like 
two children. Elma’s face was very rosy, but the tears were still 
hovering near. At last she raised her brave clear eyes to meet 
his. With a little smile she turned at length, and looked dreamily 
away over the high brick wall towards the snowy clouds cluster- 
ing far off above the sea. 

“ It must have been a very hard part to act,” she said, softly 
and very sympathetically. “ But,” she added, after a pause, with 
a sudden change of humor, “I knew it — I think I knew it all 
along. At any rate, I — there never has been anybody else, I 
mean.” 


THE END. 


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BLACK’S ( W.) A Daughter of Heth . 1 2mo, Cloth, $125; 8vo, Paper 35 

A Princess of Thule 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 8vo, Paper 60 

Green Pastures and Piccadilly. ..12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 8vo, Paper 50 

In Far Lochaber 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 8vo, Paper 40 


2 


Harper & Brothers ' 1 Popular Novels. 


BLACK’S (W.) In Silk Attire 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 ; 

Judith Shakespeare. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 125; 

Kilmeny 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 

Macleod of Dare. Illustrated. 12mo, doth, 1 25; 


PRIOR 

8vo, Paper $ 35 
4 to, Paper 
8vo, Paper 
8vo, Paper 
4 to, Paper 
8vo, Paper 
4to, Paper 
4to, Paper 
4to, Paper 
4to, Paper 


Madcap Violet 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 

Sabina Zembra 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 

Shandon Bells. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 125; 

Sunrise 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 

That Beautiful Wretch. Ill’d...l2mo, Cloth, 1 25; 

The Maid of Killeena, and Other Stories 8vo, Paper 

The Monarch of Mincing-Lane. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat. Illustrated . 12mo, Cloth 

8vo, Paper 

The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 ; 8vo, Pa. 

Three Feathers. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 8vo, Paper 

White Heather 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 4to, Paper 

White Wings. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 125; 4to, Paper 

. Yolande. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 4 to, Paper 

BLACKMORE’S (R. D.) Alice Lorraine 8vo, Paper 

Christowell 4to, Paper 

Clara Vaughan 4to, Paper 

Cradock Nowell 8vo, Paper 

Cripps, the Carrier. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Erema 8vo, Paper 

Lorna Doone 12mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper 

Mary Anerley 16mo, Cloth, 100; 4to, Paper 

Springhaven. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 150; 4to, Paper 

The Maid of Sker 8vo, Paper 

Tommy Upmore 10mo, Cloth, 50 cts.; Paper, 35 cts.; 4to, Paper 

BRADDON’S (Miss) An Open Verdict 8vo, Paper 

A Strange World 8vo, Paper 

Asphodel 4to, Paper 

Aurora Floyd 8vo, Paper 

Barbara; or, Splendid Misery 4to, Paper 

Birds of Prey. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Bound to John Company. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Charlotte’s Inheritance 8va, Paper 

Out by the County.., 16mo, Paper 

Dead Men’s Shoes 8vo, Paper 

Dead Sea Fruit. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Eleanor’s Victory 8vo, Paper 

Fenton’s Quest. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Flower q,nd Weed 4to, Paper 

Hostages to Fortune. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Ishmael 4to, Paper 

John Marchmont’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 

Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. Hlustrated 8vo, Paper 

Just as I Am 4to, Paper 


20 

35 

60 

15 

50 

20 

20 

15 

20 

40 

60 

25 

60 

50 

50 

20 

20 

20 

60 

20 

15 

60 

50 

50 

25 

15 

25 

50 

20 

35 

40 

15 

40 

15 

50 

50 

35 

25 

40 

50 

60 

50 

10 

60 

20 

60 

50 

15 


Harper <£' Brothers' Popular Novels. 


3 


BRADDON’S (Miss) Lost for Love. 
Mistletoe Bough, 1878. Edited 
Mistletoe Bough, 1879. Edited 
Mistletoe Bough, 1884. Edited 
Mistletoe Bough, 1885. Edited 


Strangers and Pilgrims. 


The Lovels of Arden. 


PRIOR 


15 


10 


20 


20 


15 


20 


50 

,...8vo, Paper 

50 


50 


15 


30 


50 


20 


50 


10 


15 


25 


20 


1 00 


1 00 

; 8vo, Paper 

40 


1 00 

) ; 4to, Paper 

20 

) ; 8vo, Paper 

60 

, . 1 2mo, Cloth 

1 00 


To the Bitter End. 


BRONTE’S (Charlotte) Jane Eyre. * Illustrated 

4to, Paper, 15 c 

Shirley. Illustrated 

The Professor. Illustrated l‘2mo, Cloth, $ 

Villette. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 

BRONTE’S (Anne) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. II 

BRONTE’S (Emily) Wuthering Heights. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 00 

BUCHANAN’S (Robert) A Child of Nature 4to, Paper 

Annan Water 4to, Paper 

God and the Man 4to, Paper 

That Winter Night 12mo, Paper 

The New Abelard 4to, Paper 

BULWER’S (Lytton) A Strange Story. Illustrated.. 

Devereux 8vo, Paper 

Godolphin 8vo, Paper 

Kenelrn Chillingly 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 ; 8vo, Paper 

. Leila 12mo, Cloth, 

Night and Morning .... 8vo, Paper 

Pausanias the Spartan 12mo,*Cloth, 75 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

Pelham 8vo, Paper 

Rienzi 8vo, Paper 

The Caxtons 12mo,£loth 

The Coming Race 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 

The Last Days of Pompeii 8vo, Paper, 25 cents ; 

The Parisians. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 60; 

The Pilgrims of the Rhine 8vo, Paper 

What will He do with it? 8vo, Paper 

Zanoni 8vo, Paper 



15 


20 


20 

1 2mo, Paper 

20 


15 

,12mo, Cloth 

1 25 

8vo, Paper 

50 

...8vo, Paper 

40 

...8 vo, Paper 

35 

; 8vo, Paper 
12mo, Cloth, 

50 

1 00 

...8vo, Paper 

60 

8vo, Paper 

25 

...8vo, Paper 

40 

...8vo, Paper 

40 

,12mo, Cloth 

1 25 

12mo, Paper 

50 

4to, Paper 

15 

8vo, Paper 

60 

,..8vo, Paper 

20 


75 


35 


4 Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PRIOR 

CAINE’S (Hall) She’s All the World to Me 12mo, Paper $ 25 

The Shadow of a Crime 4to, Paper 20 

CAMERON’S (Mrs. H. Lovett) A North Country Maid 4to, Paper 20 

Deceivers Ever 8vo, Paper 30 

Juliet’s Guardian 8vo, Paper 40 

CAMPBELL’S (A.) Captain MacDonald’s Daughter 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

COLLINS’S (Wilkie) Novels. Ill’d Library Edition. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 
After Dark, and Other Stories. — Antonina.- — Armadale. — Basil. — 
Hide-and-Seek. — “ I Say No.” — Man and Wife. — My Miscellanies. 

— No Name. — Poor Miss Pinch. — The Dead Secret. — The Law 
and the Lady. — The Moonstone. — The New Magdalen. — The 
Queen of Hearts. — The Two Destinies. — The Woman in White. 

Antonina 8vo, Paper 40 

Armadale. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 60 

“I Say No.” 16mo, Cloth, 50 cts. ; 16mo, Paper, 35 cts. ; 4to, Paper 20 

Man and Wife 4to, Paper 20 

My Lady’s Money 32mo, Paper 25 

No Name. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Percy and the Prophet 32mo, Paper 20 

Poor Miss Finch. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, $1 10; 8 vo, Paper 60 

The Law and the Lady. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

The Moonstone. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

The New Magdalen... 8vo, Paper 30 

The Two Destinies. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

The Woman in White. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

COOKE’S (John Esten) Bonnybel Vane (Henry St. John)...16mo, Cloth 1 00 

Leather Stocking and Silk 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Mr. Grantley’s Idea 32mo, Paper 25 

Professor Pressensee 32 mo, Paper 25 

Stories of the Old Dominion 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

The Virginia Bohemians 8vo, Paper *75 

CRAIK’S (Miss G. M.) A Daughter of the People 4to, Paper 20 

Anne Warwick 8vo, Paper 25 

Dorcas 4to, Paper 15 

Fortune’s Marriage 4to, Paper 20 

Godfrey Helstone 4to, Paper 20 

Mildred 8 vo, Paper 30 

Mrs. Hollyer 4to, Paper 20 

Sydney 4to, Paper 15 

Sylvia’s Choice *. 8 vo, Paper 30 

Two Women..; 4to, Paper 15 

CROKER’S (B. M.) Pretty Miss Neville 4to, Paper 20 

Some One Else 4to, Paper 20 

CROMMELIN’S (May) A Jewel of a Girl 8vo, Paper 36 

Goblin Gold 12mo, Paper 25 

In the West Countrie 4to, Paper 20 

J°y 4 to, Paper 20 

Orange Lily 4to, Paper 10 

DEFOE’S (Daniel) Journal of the Plague in London 4to, Paper 10 


Harper c6 Brothers' Popular Novels. 


DEFOE’S (Daniel) Robinson Crusoe ,...4to, Paper $ 

DE MILLE’S A Castle in Spain. Ill’ll 8vo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper 

Cord and Creese. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The American Baron. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Cryptogram. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 

The Dodge Club. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 1 

The Living Link. Illustrated.... 8 vo, Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 1 
DICKENS’S (Charles) Works. Household Edition. Illustrated. 8vo. 


20 

60 

60 

60 

75 

10 

10 


A Tale of Two Cities.Paper $ 
Cloth 1 

Barnaby Rudge Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Bleak House Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Christmas Stories Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

David Copperfield. ...Paper 1 
Cloth 1 

Dombey and Son Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Great Expectations.. . Paper 1 
Cloth 1 

Hard Times, Uncommercial 
Traveller, Edwin Drood. . 

Paper, 1 00 ; Cloth 1 


50 

00 

00 

50 

00 

50 

00 

50 

00 

50 

00 

50 

00 

50 


50 


box 

22 00 

Little Dorrit 

Cloth 1 50 

Martin Chuzzlewit 

Cloth 1 50 

Nicholas Nickleby .... 

Cloth 1 60 

Oliver Twist 

Cloth 1 00 

Our Mutual Friend.... 

Cloth I 50 

Pickwick Papers 

Cloth 1 50 


Pictures from Italy, Sketches by 
Boz, American Notes ...Paper 1 00 


Cloth 

The Old Curiosity Shop. ...Paper 


50 

75 


Mystery of Edwin Drood. 


The Young Duke 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 


Debenham’s Vow. 


Cloth 

1 25 


25 


10 

...8vo, Paper 

25 

...4to, Paper 

20 


10 


15 

4to, Paper 

15 

1 2mo, Paper 

30 

. 16mo, Cloth 

1 00 


25 


20 

1 2mo, Paper 

25 


50 

...8vo, Paper 

50 

...8vo, Paper 

60 


15 


35 


25 


15 

...4to, Paper 

15 


35 


20 


20 


6 


Harper <& Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PRICE 


EDWARDS'S (M. B.) The Flower of Doom, and Other Stories ....16mo, 

Paper 

ELIOT’S (George) Works. Library Edition. 12 vols. Illustrated. 

12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 


Adam Bede. — Daniel Deronda, 2 vols. — Essays and Leaves from 
a Note-Book. — Felix Holt, the Radical. — Middlemareh, 2 vols. 

— Romola. — Scenes of Clerical Life, and Silas Marner. — The 
Mill on the Floss. — Poems: with Brother Jacob and The Lifted 
Veil. 

Fireside Edition. Containing the above in 6 vols. ( Sold only in 

Sets.) 12mo, Cloth 7 50 

Adam Bede. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Amos Barton 32mo, Paper 20 

Brother Jacob. — The Lifted Veil 32mo, Paper 20 

Daniel Deronda 8vo, Paper 50 

Felix Holt, the Radical 8vo, Paper 50 

Impressions of Theophrastus Such 4to, Paper 10 

Janet’s Repentance 32mo, Paper 20 

Middlemareh 8vo, Paper 75 

Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story 32mo, Paper 20 

Romola. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Scenes of Clerical Life 8vo, Paper 50 

Silas Marner 12mo, Paper 20 

FARJEON’S An Island Pearl. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 30 

At the Sign of the Silver Flagon 8vo, Paper 25 

Aunt Parker 4to, Paper 20 

Blade-o’-Grass. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 30 

Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

Golden Grain. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 35 

Great Porter Square 4to, Paper 20 

Jessie Trim 8vo, Paper 35 

Joshua Marvel 8vo, Paper 40 

Love’s Harvest 4to, Paper 20 

Love’s Victory 8vo, Paper 20 

Miser Farebrother. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Self-Doomed 12mo, Paper 25 

Shadows on the Snow. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 30 

The Bells of Penraven 4to, Paper 10 

The Bright Star of Life 12mo, Paper 25 

The Duchess of Rosemary Lane 8vo, Paper 35 

The King of No-Land. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

The Nine of Hearts : 12mo, Paper 25 

The Sacred Nugget 12mo, Paper 25 

FENN’S (Geo. M.) Devon Boys. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Ship Ahoy ! 8vo, Paper 35 

The Chaplain’s Craze 12mo, Paper 25 

The Dark House 12mo, Paper 25 

The Parson o’ Dumford 4to, Paper 15 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


7 


PRTOB 

FENN’S (Geo. M.) The Treasure Hunters 8vo, Paper $ ‘25 

This Man’s Wife 4to, Paper 20 

FORDE’S (Gertrude) In the Old Palazzo 4to, Paper 20 

Only a Coral Girl 8vo, Paper 30 

FRANZOS’S (K. E.) For the Right 8vo, Paper 30 

GASKELL’S (Mrs.) Cousin Phillis 8vo, Paper 20 

Cranford 16mo, Cloth, $1 25; 16mo, Paper 26 


Moorland Cottage 18mo, Cloth 75 

My Lady Ludlow 8vo, Paper 20 

Right at Last, &c 1 2mo, Cloth 1 50 

Sylvia’s Lovers 8vo, Paper 40 

Wives and Daughters. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

GERARD’S (E. D.) Beggar My Neighbor 4to, Paper 20 

Reata 4to, Paper 20 

The Waters of Hercules 12mo, Paper, 25 cents ; 4to, Paper 20 

GIBBON’S (C.) A Hard Knot 12mo, Paper 25 

A Heart’s Problem 4to, Paper 10 

By Mead and Stream 4to, Paper 20 

Clare of Claresmede 4to, Paper 20 

For Lack of Gold 8vo, Paper 35 

For the King 8 vo, Paper 30 

Heart’s Delight 4to, Paper 20 

In Honor Bound 4to, Paper 35 

Of High Degree ...8vo, Paper 20 

Queen of the Meadow 4to, Paper 15 

Robin Gray 8vo, Paper 35 

The Braes of Yarrow 4to, Paper 20 

The Golden Shaft 4to, Paper 20 

HAGGARD’S (H. Rider) Allan Quatermain. Ill’d 16mo, Half Cloth 75 

Paper 25 

Dawn 16mo, Half Cloth 75 

Jess 16mo, Half Cloth, 75 oents; 4to, Paper 15 

King Solomon’s Mines 16mo, Half Cloth, 75 cents ; 4to, Paper 20 

Maiwa’s Revenge. Illustrated 16mo, Paper 25 

Half Cloth 75 

Mr. Meeson’s Will 16mo, Half Cloth, 75 cents; Paper 25 

“She.” IlTd...l6mo, Half Cloth, 75 cts; Paper. 25 cts; 4to, Paper 25 

The Witch’s Head 16mo, Half Cloth 75 

HARDY’S (Thos.) A Laodicean. Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Fellow-Townsmen 32mo, Paper 20 

Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid 4to, Paper 10 

The Woodlanders 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents ; 4to, Paper 20 

Wessex Tales 8vo, Paper 30 

HARRISON’S (Mrs.) Bar-Harbor Days. Illustrated 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

Golden Rod .* 32mo, Paper 25 

Helen Troy 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

HATTON’S (Joseph) John Needham’s Double 12mo, Paper 25 

The Great World 4to, Paper 20 


8 


Harper & Brothers Popular Novels. 


PRICE 

HATTON’S (Joseph) The Queen of Bohemia 4to, Paper $ 16 

Three Recruits . 4to, Paper 16 

HAY’S (M. C.) A Dark Inheritance 32mo, Paper 16 

A Shadow on the Threshold 32mo, Paper 20 

A Wicked Girl . 12mo, Paper 26 

Among the Ruins, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 16 

At the Seaside, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 16 

Back to the Old Home 32mo, Paper 20 

Bid Me Discourse 4to, Paper 10 

Dorothy’s Venture 4to, Paper 16 

For Her Dear Sake 4to, Paper 15 

Hidden Perils 8vo, Paper 25 

Into the Shade, and Other Stories ,....4to, Paper 15 

Lady Carmichael’s Will 32mo, Paper 15 

Lester's Secret 1 2mo, Paper, 30 cents ; 4to, Paper 20 

Missing 32mo, Paper 20 

My First Offer, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Nora’s Love Test.. 8vo, Paper 25 

Old Myddelton’s Money 8vo, Paper 25 

Reaping the Whirlwind 32mo, Paper 20 

The Arundel Motto 8vo, Paper 25 

The Sorrow of a Secret 32mo, Paper 15 

The Squire’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 25 

Under Life’s Key, and Other Siories 4to, Paper 15 

Victor and Vanquished 8vo, Paper 25 

IIOEY’S (Mrs. C.) A Golden Sorrow 8vo, Paper 40 

A Stern Chase 4to, Paper 20 

All or Nothing 4to, Paper 15 

Kate Cronin’s Dowry 32mo, Paper 15 

The Blossoming of an Aloe 8vo, Paper 30 

The Lover’s Creed 4to, Paper 20 

The Question of Cain 4to, Paper 20 

HOSMER’S (G. W.) “As We Went Marching On.” 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

HOWARD’S (Blanche W.) Tony, the Maid. Illustrated.... 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

HOWELLS’S (W. D.) April Hopes 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

The Garroters 16mo, Cloth 50 

HUGHES’S (Thomas) Tom Brown’s School Days. Illustrated 8vo, 

Paper, 40 cents ; 4to, Paper 10 

Tom Brown at Oxford. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Schoc* Days and Oxford. In one volume 8vo, Cloth 1 50 

HUGO’S (Victor) Ninety-Three. IH’d. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 8vo, Paper 25 


HUMPHREY’S (F. A.) The Children of Old Park’s Tavern.. 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

JAMES’S (Henry) An International Episode 32mo, Paper 20 

Daisy Miller 32mo, Paper 20 

Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters 32mo, Paper 25 

The four above-mentioned works in one volume 4to, Paper 25 

Washington Square. Illustrated 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

JOHNSON’S (V. W.) A Sack of Gold 8vo, Paper 35 


Harper <£ Brothers' Popular Novels. 9 


PRICK 

JOHNSON’S (Y. W.) Joseph the Jew 8vo, Paper $ 40 

Miss Nancy’s Pilgrimage 8vo, Paper 40 

The Calderwood Secret 8vo, Paper 40 

The Neptune Vase 4to, Paper 20 

Tulip Place 12mo, Paper 25 

Two Old Cats 4to, Paper 15 

JOHNSTON’S (R. M.) Dukesborougli Tales. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and Other Georgia Folk. Illustrated. 

16mo, Cloth 1 00 

Old Mark Langston 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

KING’S (Captain Charles) A War-Time Wooing. Ill’d. .. Post 8vo, Cloth I 00 

KING’S (Katharine) Hugh Melton. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

Off the Roll 8 vo, Paper 50 

Our Detachment 8vo, Paper 85 

The Bubble Reputation 4to, Paper 15 

LANG’S (Andrew) In the Wrong Paradise, etc 12mo, Cloth 60 

LANG’S (Mrs. A.) Dissolving Views. 16mo, Cloth, 50 cents ; 16mo, Paper 35 

LAWRENCE’S (G. A.) Anteros 8vo, Paper 40 

Breaking a Butterfly 8vo, Paper 35 

Guy Livingstone 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 4to, Paper 10 

Hagarene 8 vo, Paper 35 

Sans Merci 8 vo, Paper 35 

LEE’S (V.) Miss Brown 4to, Paper 20 

Ottilie, and The Prince of the Hundred Soups 4to, Paper 20 

LEVER’S (Charles) A Day’s Ride 8vo, Paper 40 

Barrington 8vo, Paper 40 

Gerald Fitzgerald 8 vo, Paper 40 

Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper 50 

One of Them 8vo, Paper 50 

Roland Cashel. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 

Sir Brook Fosbrooke 8vo, Paper 50 

Sir Jasper Carew 8 vo, Paper 50 

That Boy of Norcott’s. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

The Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly 8vo, Paper 50 

The Daltons 8vo, Paper 75 

The Fortunes of Glencore 8vo, Paper 50 

The Martins of Cro’ Martin 8vo, Paper 60 

LILLIE’S (Mrs. L.C.) Prudence. Ill’d. 16mo, Cloth, 90 cts.; 16mo, Paper 50 

LLNSKILL’S (M.) Between Heather and Sea 4to, Paper 20 

In Exchange for a Soul....... 4to, Paper 20 

LINTON’S (Mrs. E. Lynn) From Dreams to Waking 8vo, Paper 20 

lone Stewart 4to, Paper 20 

Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg 8vo, Paper 60 

My Love 4to, Paper 20 

Our Professor 32mo, Paper 15 

Paston Carew 4to, Paper 20 

Sowing the Wind 8vo, Paper 35 

The Rebel of the Family 4to, Paper 25 

Through the Long Nights 8 vo, Paper 25 


10 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


' PRIOR 

LOVE and Mirage 16mo, Cloth, 50 cents ; Paper ,$ 35 

LYALL'S (Edna) In the Golden Days 16mo, Cloth 75 

Knight-Errant 4to, Paper 20 

MoCARTHY’S (Justin) Comet of a Season 4to, Paper 20 

Donna Quixote 4to, Paper 15 

Maid of Athens 4to, Paper 20 

My Enemy’s Daughter. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

The Waterdale Neighbors 8vo, Paper 35 

MCCARTHY’S (Justin H.) Doom 12mo, Paper 25 

Our Sensation Novel 12mo, Paper 25 

MACDONALD’S (George) Alec Forbes 8vo, Paper 50 

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood 12mo, Cloth 1 25 

Donal Grant 4 to, Paper 20 

Guild Court 8vo, Paper 40 

Warlock o’ Glenwarlock 4to, Paper 20 

Weighed and Wanting 4to, Paper 20 

What’s Mine’s Mine 4to, Paper 20 

MACQUOID’S (Mrs.) Beside the River 4to, Paper 20 

Elinor Dryden 4to, Paper 15 

Joan Wentworth 12mo, Paper 25 

Louisa. In Two Parts v 12mo, Paper, each 25 

Marjorie 4to, Paper 20 

Mkre Suzanne 4to, Paper 20 

Patty 8vo, Paper 50 

Sir James Appleby, Bart 4to, Paper 20 

The Awakening 32mo, Paper 15 

The Mill of St. Herbot 32mo, Paper 20 

Too Soon 8 vo, Paper 30 

MAGRUDER’S (Julia) A Magnificent Plebeian 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

MARTIN’S (Mrs. Herbert) Amor Vincit 4to, Paper 20 

“Bonnie Lesley ” 4to, Paper 10 

“For a Dream’s Sake” 4to, Paper 15 

MEREDITH’S (Geo.) Diana of the Crossways 4to, Paper 20 

Evan Harrington 12mo, Cloth 1 60 

The Egoist 4to, Paper 15 

The House on the Beach 32mo, Paper 20 

MOLESWORTH’S (Mrs.) Marrying and Giving in Marriage. 4to, Paper 15 

Miss Bouverie 4to, Paper 15 

Us 12mo, Paper 25 

MULOCK'S (Miss) A Brave Lady. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 90 

Agatha’s Husband. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 35 

A Legacy 12mo, Cloth 90 

A Life for a Life 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 40 

A Noble Life 12mo, Cloth 90 

Avillion, and Other Tales 8vo, Paper 60 

Christian’s Mistake 12mo, Cloth 90 

Hannah. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 35 

Head of the Family. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 50 


His Little Mother 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 10 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


11 


PRIOR 

MULOCK’S (Miss) John Halifax, Gentleman. Illustrated. . .8vo, Paper $ 50 

12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 4to, Paper 15 

King Arthur 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 16mo, Paper 25 

Miss Tommy. Illustrated . ...12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 12mo, Paper 50 

Mistress and Maid 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents, 8vo, Paper 30 

My Mother and I. Illustrated.. . 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 40 

Nothing New 8vo, Paper 30 

Ogilvies. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 35 

Olive. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 35 

The Laurel Bush. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 25 

The Woman’s Kingdom. Iird...l2mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 60 

Two Marriages 12mo, Cloth 90 

Unkind Word, and Other Stories 12mo, Cloth 90 

Young Mrs. Jardine 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 4to, Paper 10 

MURRAY’S (D. C.) A Life’s Atonement 4to, Paper 20 

A Model Father 4to, Paper 10 

Aunt Rachel 12mo, Paper 25 

By the Gate of the Sea 4to, Paper 15 

12mo, Paper 15 

Cynic Fortune 12mo, Paper 25' 

First Person Singular 4to, Paper 25 

Hearts .’ 4to, Paper 20 

Rainbow Gold 4to, Paper 20 

The Way of the World 4to, Paper 20 

Yal Strange 4to, Paper 20 

^ORRIS’S (W E.) A Man of His Word, &c 4to, Paper 20 

Adrian Vidal. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Heaps of Money 8vo, Paper 15 

Her Own Doing 12mo, Paper 25 

Mademoiselle de Mersac 4to, Paper 20 

Matrimony. 4to, Paper 20 

No New Thing 4to, Paper 25 

That Terrible Man 12mo, Paper 25 

Thirlby Hall. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

NOTLEY’S (F. E. M.) Love’s Crosses 4to, Paper 15 

Red Riding-Hood 4to. Paper 20 

Time Shall Try 4to, Paper 15 

O’HANLON’S (Alice) A Costly Heritage 4to, Paper 20 

Horace McLean 4to, Paper 15 

No Proof < 4to, Paper 20 

Robert Reid, Cotton-Spinner 4to, Paper 20 

The Unforeseen 4to, Paper 20 

OLIPHANT’S (Laurence) Altiora Peto. 4to, Paper, 20 cts. ; 16mo. Paper 20 

Irene Macgilliouddy 32mo, Paper 15 

Piccadilly ’ 16mo, Paper 25 

OLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) A Country Gentleman 4to, Paper 20 

A House Divided Against Itself 4to, Paper 20 

A Son of the Soil 8vo, Paper 50 

Agnes 8vo, Paper 50 


12 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


OLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) Brownlows 8vo, Paper $ 50 

CaritA Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 50 

Chronicles of Carlingford 8vo, Paper 60 

Effie Ogilvie 12mo, Paper 25 

For Love and Life 8vo, Paper 50 

Harry Joscelyn 4 to, Paper 20 

He That Will Not when He May 4to, Paper 20 

Hester 4to, Paper 20 

Innocent. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

It was a Lover and His Lass 4to, Paper 20 

Joyce 8vo, Paper 35 

Lady Jane 4to, Paper 10 

Lucy Crofton 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Madam 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents; 4to, Paper 25 

Madonna Mary 8vo, Paper 50 

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60 

25 

50 

60 

20 

20 

75 

00 

25 

20 

90 

90 

80 


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(11 vols.) 12 00 

11 vols., Half Calf 31 25 


25 

00 


Complete Sets 


IlAfcPEirs PUA.NKL1N SQUARE LiBRARY-Continued. 


CENTS. 


I Like Lucifer. A Novel. By Denzil Vane 

i. Keep my Secret. A Novel. By G. M. Robins.. 
I The Chilcotes ; or. Two Widows. Bv L. Keith.. 
L The One Tiling Needful. By Miss Braddon. . . . 
L Two Pinches of Snuff. By William Westall.... 

L The Court of France. By Lady Jackson 

1 • Si. Brtavels. A Novel. By Mary Deane 

\l Ottilie. By Vernon Lee. — The Prince of the Hun- 
dred Soups. Edited by Vernon Lee 

I* Ancient American Polities. By Hugh J. Hastings 

. Both in the Wrong. By Mrs. J. K. Spender 

. Autobiography of Leigh Hunt 

* Clare of Ciaresmede. A Novel. By Chas. Gibbon. 
. The Touchstone of Peril. By R. 1C. Forrest .... 

. This Man's Wife. By George Manville Feun... 

. Paston Carew. By E. Lynn Linton... 

• Stf James Appleby, Bart. By K. S. Mncquoid.. 

. The Children of Gibeon. By Walter Besant.... 

. King Solomon’s Mines. By II. Rider Haggard. 

. Mob i\vks. A Novel. By Miss M. 10. Braddon. . 

* ’he Son of Hi> Father. By Mrs. Oliphant 

jt A Daughter of the People. BvG.M.Craik 

| . A Wilful Voting Woman. A Novel 

| . The World Went Very Well Then. A Novel. By 

Walter Besant. Profu>ely Illustrated. 

. She. By II. Rider Haggard. Profusely IlPd... 

. John West a coil. A Novel. By James Baker.. 

. The Girl in the Brown Habit. By Mrs. Kennard. 
. Dorothy Forster. A Novel. By Walter Besant. 

. Devon Boys. By G. M. Fenn. Illustrated 

. A Near Relation. A Novel. By C. R. Coleridge 
. Elizabeth’s Fortune. A Novel. By Bertha Thomas 

. Gladys Fane. By T. Wemyss Reid i 

. The Fawcetts and Garods. By Suimnth 

. Jess. A Novel. By II. Rider Haggard 

I Sprlntrhaven. A Novel. By J. D. Blackmore. . 
'. The Merry Men, &c. By Robert L. Stevenson. . 
>. Kidnapped.— Strange Case of Dr. Jekvll and Mr. 
Hyde. — Treasure Island. By R. L. Stevenson. 

. The Golden Hope. By W. Clark Russell 

!. The Woodlanders. By Thomas Hardy 

Sabina Zembra. A Novel. By William Black. 

. The Bride of the Nile. By Georg Ebers 

•. Knight-Errant. A Novel. By Edna Lyall 

u Charles Reade. A Memoir 

Amaryllis at the Fair. By Richard Jefferies... 

I. Garrison Gossip. By John Strange Winter 

». Glow-worm 'Pales. By James Payn 

). In the Name of the Tzar. By J. iielford Dayne. 
. Next of Kin — Wanted. By Miss M. B. Edwards 
L Marrying and Giving in Marriage. A Novel. 

By Mrs. Molesworth 

t. To Call Her Mine. By Walter Besant. IlPd... 

I. Disappeared. By Sarah Tytler 

». Amor Vincit. A Novel. By Mrs. Herbert Martin 

». A Lost Reputation. A Novel 

\ A Choice of Chance. By William Dobson 

I. 90 Dark Street. A Novel. By F. W. Robinson. 
>. Present Position of European Politics. By Sir 

Charles W. Dilke 

>. 11 V. R:” Or, The Adventures of Three Days in 
1837 (With Two Nights Between). By E. Rose. 
1. Jacobi's Wife. A Novel. By Adeline Sergeant 
5. The Iloly Rose. A Novel. By Walter Besant. . 
I The O’Donnells of Inchfawn. A Novel. By 

L. T. Meade. With One Illustration 

I. Prison Life in Siberia. By Fedor Dostoieffsky. 

Translated by II. Sutherland Edwards 

5. In Bad Hands, and Other Stories. By F. W. 

Robinson 

5. Weeping Ferry. A Novel. By George liaise... 
7. Essays and Leaves from a Note -Book. By 

George Eliot 

3. More True Than Truthful. A Novel. By Mrs. 
Charles M. Clarke 


20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

25 

20 

20 

30 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

25 

25 

20 

20 

20 

25 

20 

20 

20 

20 

15 

25 

15 

20 

20 

20 

20 

25 

20 

25 

15 

15 

20 

15 

20 


15 

15 

15 

20 

15 

20 

15 

20 

15 

‘20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 


CENTS. 

599. A Book for the Hammock. By W. Clark Russell 20 
6U0. The Great World. A Novel. By Joseph Hat- 
ton 20 

601. Diane De Breteuille. A Love Story. By Hubert 

E. H. Jerningham 15 

602. Madame’s Granddaughter. A Novel. By Frances 

Mary Peard 15 

603. Paddy at Home (“Chez Paddy 1 '). By Baron E. De 

Mandat-Grancey. Translated by A.P. Morton. 20 

604. An Ugly Duckling. A Novel. By Henry Erroll 20 

G05. A Fair Crusader. A Story of To-day. By Will- 


iam Westall 2b 

606. One that Wius. A Novel. By the Author of 

“ Whom Nature Leadeth ” 20 

607. The Frozen Pirate. A Novel. By W. Clark 

Russell. Illustrated 25 

608. Friend MacDonald and the Land of the Mottn- 

seer. By Max O’Rell 20 

609. Iler Two Millions. A Novel. By William 

Westall. Illustrated 25 

610. M£re Suzanne, and Other Stories. By Katha- 

rine S. Macquoid 20 

611. In Exchange for a Soul. A Novel. By Mary 

Linskill 20 

612. Character. By Samuel Smiles 20 

613. Katharine Regina. A Novel. By Walter Besant 15 

614. Miser Farebrother. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon. 

Illustrated 25 

615. Thrift. By Samuel Smiles 20 

016. For the Right. A Novel. By Karl Emil Fran- 

zo8. Translated by Julie Sutter. With a Pre- 
face by George Macdonald, LL.D 30 

617. Only a Coral Girl. A Novel. By Gertrude Forde 30 

618. Herr Paultis. A Novel. By \\ y alter Besant.... 35 

619. The Life of William I., Emperor of Germany 

and King of Prussia. Illustrated 10 

620. Joyce. A Novel. By Mrs. Oliphant 35 

621. Wessex Tales. By Thomas Hardy 35 

622. The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat. A 

Novel. By William Black. Illustrated 50 

623. The Mystery of Mirbridge. A Novel. By James 

Payn. Illustrated 50 

624. The Fatal Three. A Novel. By M. E. Braddon 30 

625. Through the Long Nights. A Novel. By Mrs. 

E. Lynn Linton 25 

C26. The Eavesdropper. A Novel. By James Payn 25 

6*27. The Rebel Rose. A Novel 40 

G28. The Mediation of Ralph Hardelot. A Novel. 

By William Minto 30 

629. In Far Lochaber. A Novel. By W’illiam Black 40 

630. The Inner House. A Novel. By Walter Besant 30 

631. Yule-Tide Stories and Pictures 25 

632. A Christmas Rose. A Novel. By R.E. Francillon, 30 

633. The Countess Eve. A Novel. By J. II. Short- 

house 25 

634. For Faith and Freedom. A Novel. By Walter 

Besant. Illustrated 50 

635. The Peril of Richard Pardon. A Novel. By 

B. L. Farjeon. Illustrated 30 

G36. When a Man’s Single. A Tale of Literary Life. 

By J. M. Barrie 35 

637. The Weaker Vessel. A Novel. By D. Christie 

-Murray. Illustrated 50 

638. Toilers of Babylon. A Novel. B. L. Farjeon. . 40 

639. A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylin- 

der. Illustrated 50 

640. French Janet. A Novel. By Sarah Ty tier 30 

641. A Dangerous Catspaw. A Novel. By I). Chris- 

tie Murray and Henry Murray 30 

642. Lady Bluebeard. A Novel. By the Author of 

“Zit and Xoe.” 40 

6£3. The Country Cousin. A Novel. By Frances 

Mary Peard 40 

644. The Phantom Future. A Novel. By Henry S. 

Merrimau 35 


4 


Published by HARPER BROTHERS, New York. 

F" Harper & Brothers will send any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid , to any part of the United States 

or Canada , on receipt of the price. 


HARPER’S WEEKLY. 


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